…NPDC produces 17m barrels in one year
Ike Amos
29 April 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja — Independents and marginal oil fields producer accounted for only 4.39 percent of Nigeria’s crude oil and condensates production in 2016, according to latest data released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
This was in spite of the Federal Government’s many efforts to improve their fortunes and the many targets set for the operators, who are mainly indigenous companies, to begin to make a significant contribution to Nigeria’s crude oil output.
In general, the NNPC, in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for January 2017, released a few days ago, stated that a total of 661.086 million barrels of crude oil was produced in 2016, representing an average of 1.806 million barrels per day.
On a month-on-month basis, the NNPC report noted that from January to June 2016, 66.63 million barrels; 59.2 million barrels; 60.7 million barrels, 59.6 million barrels; 52.2 million barrels and 53.1 million barrels were recorded respectively; while 51.4 million barrels; 47.3 million barrels; 49.5 million barrels; 54.9 million barrels; 57.9 million barrels and 48.9 million barrels of crude oil were recorded from July to December 2016 respectively.
Specifically, independents and marginal fields produced a total of 28.994 million barrels of crude oil in 2016, representing 4.39 of total crude oil production recorded in the year under review.
Production Sharing Companies (PSC) recorded the highest share of crude oil produced in the year, with 325.4 million barrels of crude oil, representing 49.22 percent of total production, while Joint Venture (JV) companies accounted for 31.2 percent of total crude oil production, with 206.3 million barrels.
Alternative Finance companies, on the other hand, accounted for 12.62 percent of total crude oil and condensates production, with 83.4 million barrels in the year under review.
Confirming claims by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, that it lacked the capacity to manage national oil assets allocated to it, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, accounted for 2.57 percent of total crude oil produced in 2016, with 17.02 million barrels.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, had a couple of days ago, berated the NPDC, declaring that the company lacked the requisite technical expertise and financial capability to manage Nigeria’s oil assets.
NEITI had in a statement on its recently released Policy Brief entitled ‘Unremitted funds, oil sector reforms and economic recovery’, also called on the Federal Government to revisit and re-evaluate the transfer of the federation oil assets by the NNPC to the NPDC, its upstream subsidiary.
NEITI stated that the review became imperative, in view of the under-valuation, non-payment for the assets and the inability of the NPDC to either make returns on the investments or be accountable to the federation over its management of Nigeria’s oil assets in its custody.
However, commenting on the NPDC’s performance in 2016, the NNPC stated that NPDC production continued to be hampered by the incessant pipeline vandalism in the Niger-Delta.
It projected that the NPDC would ramp-up its production level to 250,000 barrels per day after the completion of the on-going NPDC re-kitting project and repairs of vandalized facilities.
It explained that production from NPDC wholly operated assets amounted to 9.059 million barrels or 53.23 per cent of NPDC’s total production, with Okono Okpoho (OML 119) alone producing 91.26 per cent of the NPDC wholly owned operated Assets or 48.58 per cent of the total NPDC production.
“Also on the NPDC operated JV assets, in which NPDC owns 55% controlling interest, Crude Oil production amounted to 4,537,098 barrel (or 26.66% of the NPDC total production). On the Non-operated assets, production level stood at 3,421,145 barrels or 20.10% of the company production,” the NNPC stated.