Ike Amos
26 August 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Friday, called on indigenous oil companies operating in the country’s petroleum industry to take advantage of the persistently low price of crude oil to develop their capacity and acquire technology.
According to a statement by the NNPC, Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Mr. Maikanti Baru, gave this charge when he received a delegation of Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG), IPPG led by its chairman, Mr. Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, in Abuja.
Baru also called on IPPG to ignore the current challenges in the global petroleum industry and take steps to ramp up their collective production from 10 per cent of national production to fifty per cent in the next 10 years.
This, he said, was in order for the companies to increase their footprint in the upstream sub-sector as was the case in the downstream.
He said the NNPC was passionate about collaborating with the indigenous producers in order to grow their capacity and participation in the exploration and production sub-sector in line with government’s local content policy.
He said the Corporation was very proud of the companies and was looking forward to a time when about ninety per cent of upstream operations in the country would be controlled by them.
He also urged members of the group to participate in the forthcoming bid round for about 30 marginal oil fields which would soon be flagged off by the Federal Government.
He argued that there were lots of opportunities in the marginal fields which would soon be available.
He urged the IPPG to work hand-in-hand with the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to ensure that they met the conditions that would be required from bidders.
“The marginal oil field lease renewal is an opportunity for your group. You will need to engage the DPR early in discussion to find out the conditions that the Federal Government is interested in. For example, the supply of gas to power plants and fertilizer plants and I think your group will be successful,” Baru said.
He applauded members of the group for their productive community engagement which had stemmed the incidence of pipeline sabotage along the Trans Forcados Pipeline and enjoined them to extend a similar gesture to the communities around the other crude oil lines to help stabilize national production.
In his own remark, Chairman of the IPPG, Mr. Adeyemi-Bero, said the group was made up of twenty-five active indigenous producers and driven by the passion to support the 12 Business Focus Areas of the current management of NNPC and the Seven Big Wins of the Federal Government.
He praised the Federal Government for initiating the Joint Venture cash call exit programme, stressing that the move would bolster their activities in the upstream sub-sector.