RECESSION: Nigeria’s oil, gas reserves running out, NNPC warns
ABUJA—The Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, painted a gloomy outlook for Nigeria’s
economic fortunes, as it disclosed that the country’s crude oil and gas
reserves were fast depleting. The NNPC in a statement in Abuja, therefore, begged
oil and gas exploration companies, professionals and other stakeholders to
focus on increasing the nation’s oil and gas reserve base to match national
aspirations to increase oil production.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC,
Mr. Maikanti Baru, who disclosed this when the Nigerian Association of
Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE, hosted him in Abuja, also expressed readiness
of the NNPC to partner with stakeholders in the oil and gas industry to grow
the nation’s fast depleting reserves in order to increase productivity in the
petroleum sector. He said: “Our national gas demand forecast to year 2020, domestic
plus export, indicates a rapid growth to 15 billion Standard Cubic Feet per day
(bscfd), meaning current reserves level can only sustain that production for 35
years, if we do not increase the 2bscfd gas reserves base which require three
trillion cubic feet (tcf) to replace production yearly.” It was also revealed
that the country’s drive for industrialization risks being truncated, as Baru
stated that the country’s aspirations were to increase oil production to four
million barrels per day and meet gas demand of 15 billion standard cubic feet
per day, bscfd, by 2020, required for industrialization and consumption. He
further lamented that less than three per cent of all oil wells drilled in the
Niger Delta Basin, both onshore and swamp, were deeper than 15,000 feet, adding
that a greater number of these wells had not gone beyond the 10,000 feet as a
high pressure regime seemed to be a limiting factor. However, he stated that
“some of our earlier drilled non-commercial holes could be turned around if we
deploy requisite technologies; we need to change our perspective of risk as
technology is advancing.” Baru further explained that the 2016 national average
oil production of 1.9 million barrels was low, partly due to oil infrastructure
vandalism. He stressed the need for stakeholders to share data and use common
available resources to reduce cost of operations in the area of rig-sharing,
vessel sharing and synergy in projects development, adding that this had become
even expedient in this era of low oil prices and security challenges. On
frontier exploration, Baru said the NNPC was progressing in exploration efforts
in the Chad Basin, the Benue trough and other frontier basins to shore up the
reserve base of the country. In his own presentation, NAPE President, Mr. Nosa
Omorodion, said the association was ready to support NNPC in its drive to grow
reserves towards increased production in all the frontier basins.
ABUJA—The Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, painted a gloomy
outlook for Nigeria’s economic fortunes, as it disclosed that the
country’s crude oil and gas reserves were fast depleting.
The NNPC in a statement in Abuja, therefore, begged oil and gas
exploration companies, professionals and other stakeholders to focus on
increasing the nation’s oil and gas reserve base to match national
aspirations to increase oil production.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/recession-nigerias-oil-gas-reserves-running-nnpc-warns/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/recession-nigerias-oil-gas-reserves-running-nnpc-warns/
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