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The Federal Government (FG) on Monday set May 2023 target to meet the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil production quota of 1.8 million barrels per day (mbpd).
This is coming despite its inability to produce above 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, made the disclosure in a statement issued by his media aide in Abuja.
According to him, Nigeria’s inability to meet the current OPEC quota was not the result of a lack of capacity but of oil theft.
“A lot of producers decided not to inject into the pipelines because they were losing a lot of their productions when they inject into the pipelines.
“Once we are able to build enough confidence in the security of the pipelines, they (producers) will then be able to inject into the pipelines once again and once that happens, we will be able to meet up with our OPEC quotas. That is where we are going and the early signals are there that we are making very good progress,” he said
He maintained that the country currently produces over a million barrels of crude oil stressing that, “when we have built confidence enough on the pipelines and all the producers begin to inject into the pipelines that have been secured, we will be able to produce quickly to meet our OPEC quota. That’s really our plan and I am hoping that before the exit of this administration, we should be able to meet our OPEC quota.”
However, he assured that the government will continue to improve security along the tracks of the major crude oil pipelines and block every leakage through which crude oil are stolen by oil thieves and pipeline vandals.
Also, he explained that with the ongoing rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt, Warri refineries as well as the planned fixing of the Kaduna refinery and the coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery, Nigeria was sure of guaranteed crude production that will ease the incessant fuel crisis faced in the country.
“Between Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna we have over 410,000 barrels and if you have all that refined in-country that will be at least half of our consumption and with Dangote refinery which is expected to come on stream by first quarter next year, we are expecting that we will actually be exiting the importation of petroleum products by third quarter of next year. But I believe that even before the third quarter of next year we should be able to exit the importation of refined products.”
Speaking on the discovery of crude oil in Kolmani, a border town between Bauchi and Gombe states, the minister said Nigeria should brace up for more oil finds, adding that only the Niger Delta region has been explored for oil despite potentials in other regions of the country.
According to him, “Nigeria is a very prolific territory. So far, only the Niger Delta has been proven as oil-bearing territory. But we have a lot of other basins within Nigeria: we have the Benue trough, the Gongola Basin, the Sokoto Basin and the Dahomey Basin. We have a lot of basins that have not been proven. We are targeting to get to see how we can explore for oil especially now that the world is transiting.”
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