NNPC says oil production rises to 1.67 million bpd

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Limited has said the reforms to tackle oil theft raised the country’s oil production to 1.67 million barrels per day (bpd), a few millions short of the 1.8 million bpd quota allocated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer of NNPC, said that the rectangular security approach, comprising NNPC and partners regulators, government security operators and the communities, boosted by technology adoption, ensured production recovery from 1.08 million bpd in July 2022 to 1.67 million bpd.

He disclosed this at a meeting of stakeholders in the oil and gas industry, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The meeting was called to discuss the challenges of crude oil theft and losses affecting the oil and gas industry.

Kyari, who was represented by Bala Wunti, chief upstream investment officer, NNPC, said the implementation of the Detect, Deter, Destroy, and Recover (3D strategy); the establishment of the Central Command and Control Centre for effective monitoring and coordination; the launch of the Whistle-Blowers Portal and the Crude Oil Validation Portal; the deployment of some of the best-in-class surveillance tools; and technology have been a game changer in the fight against crude oil theft and vandalism.

According to Kyari, a vital element of the collaboration has been onboarding the private security contractors from the host communities, which were hitherto isolated.

“Security contractors’ in-depth knowledge of the terrain and modus operandi of the criminals have led to massive discoveries of illegal connections and interception of vessels ferrying stolen crude oil,” he said.

“With the current sustained efforts, facilities that have been shut down have reopened, and injection of crude oil into major trunklines for evacuation to the terminals was ramped up.”

According to Kyari, the oil and gas industry was poised to reposition itself for a sustainable growth trajectory as the efforts to rid Nigeria of the menace of crude oil theft continue to gain traction.

He also said that much work has gone into changing the narrative and bringing all the industry stakeholders together to confront a common enemy.

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Crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, which led to production shut-ins, has been a major setback for Nigeria. The country saw oil production dip below one million barrels bpd in August and September last year. This had cut the contribution of foreign exchange earnings from crude oil export from 90 per cent when production was high to 78.5 per cent as of the third quarter of 2022.

To arrest the situation, Nigeria’s state oil company engaged Tantita Securities Service, a private security, owned by Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo (Tompolo) on August 13, 2023 for pipeline surveillance.

The NNPC and the security agencies had put up a control centre to provide surveillance of all the country’s oil and gas assets in the Niger Delta. The surveillance system is the Central Coordination, Data Integration and Activation Control Room.