The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC ) has hinged the inability of the country to reach the Four million production and 40 billion reserve target on funding constraints, infrastructure vandalism, security concerns and a host of others.
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, who made this disclosure during the conference organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE) Nigeria Council, said that the Federal Government is committed to ensuring production and reserve growth by restoring oil and gas production to peak levels, growing the production mix and portfolio of oil and gas reserves through very transparent processes.
Represented by the Managing Director of National Engineering and Technical Company, Siky Aliyu, said that the exploration and production company Nigeria Petroleum Development Company would form the nucleus of growth for the corporation.
He said that the company has developed strategies for re-kitting NPDC and empowering it to compete favourable with other Exploration and Production companies.
Aliyu noted that all current contractual arrangements with NPDC would be reviewed. “As mandated, where contracts are discovered to be against the interest of the government, they will be terminated,” he added.
He stated: “Gas Development is imperative for economic development. We are seeing a situation whereby by 2018, domestic gas demand will outstrip gas supply to our export projects. This calls for an aggressive development of gas resources along with the gas infrastructure to deliver the gas to end users. We intend to leverage on NNPC equity and dominance in the industry to fast track gas development to meet both our domestic demand and export commitments.
“We are all witnesses of the perennial fuel crisis witnessed in the country. I have to acknowledge at this point, my predecessor and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources for his doggedness and leadership steer in ensuring the stability of fuel supply currently enjoyed by all. However, to ensure that fuel scarcity is curtailed for good, we need to carry out Upgrade and Expansion of our Existing Refineries. I am pleased to note that Dangote Group is here and also a sponsor of the Conference,
“The Company’s commitment to build a 600kbop capacity refinery is very commendable. We are willing to in any way support companies with such initiatives. Strategies are under way to enable retooling of NNPC’s four (4) refineries for better efficiency so as to ensure product availability and self-sufficiency.”
He reiterated NNPC’s commitment to pursue business diversification and also rekindle focus on renewable energy and frontier exploration services. “We intend to tap into the growing market of solar energy for power. We are also looking at the possibility of establishing wind turbine farms in suitable areas within the country.”
The objective of undertaking these projects is two pronged, which are to assist the Federal Government towards delivering it’s commitment of 10,000MW by 2019 and ensuring an alternative source of revenue for NNPC,” he said.
Aliyu added that the corporation has a mandate of opening up new frontiers to enable production and reserve addition. “NNPC is set to resume exploration activities in both the Chad and Benue Troughs. There is a high level of optimism based on recent seismic processed data from the Chad Basin that our sojourn this time around will yield successes,” he noted.
Source: www.guardian.ng