The Group CEO (GCEO) of NNPC Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, over the weekend decried Nigeria’s persistent failure to meet its production targets on underinvestment faulting theft and rising pipeline constraints. The GCEO spoke in Lagos at a Stakeholders’ Engagement Session organized in his honour by the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), tagged, “An Evening with Mele Kyari: Navigating the Path Ahead.” At the event well attended by top oil and gas industry players and investors, Kyari revealed that NNPCL was leading the task of reversing the unpalatable trend in the industry with its rig share programme.
He added that the company planned to drill a cumulative 53 wells as part of efforts to ramp up production. Kyari stated that as things were, it might be impossible to promise a two million barrels per day (bpd) oil production target. Nigeria’s production had been hovering between 1.2 million bpd and 1.4 million bpd year-to-date, lagging below the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota of 1.58 million bpd for 2024 and far below the estimated production capacity of 2.6 million bpd.
The current oil production was also below the 1.78 million bpd projected output in the 2024 national budget, with a benchmark price of $77.96 per barrel. But sharing his thoughts at the occasion, Kyari said the focus of NNPCL, the government and the stakeholders was to ensure the utilisation of resources available to Nigeria to increase oil production and tackle many issues confronting the country.
