In its bid to enhance national crude oil production to surpass the 1.8million barrels per day (mb/d) quota for the country, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) is expecting additional 400,000b/d from some mega projects.
Although production has increased to 1.6mb/d with combined efforts of security operatives and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, Gbenga Komolafe said the efforts to rake in more volumes from the major projects in Prowe, Owowo, the Bonga North and Bonga Southwest were already yielding the expected results.
“Our core focus is how we can get the mega projects like the Prowe, Bonga North, the Bonga South West Aparo, the Owowo to major projects with combined volume of about 400,000 barrels per day,” he said.
He added in view of the approvals for Field Development Programmes (FDP) for some of the 2020 marginal field bid investors, the commission is optimistic of exceeding the OPEC quota.
Asked whether Nigeria has met its OPEC quota, Komolafe said: “We are very optimistic about attaining and surpassing our OPEC quota. Like you said Nigeria OPEC quota is now about 1.8million barrels of oil per day.
“Currently, with the kinetic effort being deployed by the joint security forces and the NNPC and the regulator, as at now we have been able to attain 1.6mb/d in terms of our crude oil production;
“But having said that, like I said we are very optimistic as a commission that we have the capacity to attain and surpass our OPEC quota of the figures we just talked about through the intentional efforts that the commission is making: engaging the investors.”