…Kachikwu says country requires $10bn yearly to produce, cap oil fields
OpeOluwani Akintayo
09 August 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, says Nigeria is targeting three million barrels per day, mb/d, crude oil production.
He revealed this in the bulletin of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, published during its recent 7th Annual International Seminar.
According to the bulletin obtained by SweetcrudeReports, Kachikwu said although Nigeria’s normal production level is about 2.2mb/d, the government was working on increasing this to 3mb/d.
“Investment is needed to maintain essential work. Nigeria’s normal production level is 2.2mb/d, and the government would like to raise it to 3mb/d”, he said.
The minister also revealed that for Nigeria to begin production of crude oil in new oil fields, it would cost the country about $10 billion per year for over three years.
“Just to get fields online and cap them will require an average of about $10 billion per year in investments over the next three to four years,” he noted.
Kachikwu’s revelation on spending $10 billion yearly on developing a new oil field comes on the heels of complaints in the industry that the country has not developed any new oil fields in the past 15 years.
Meanwhile, the minister lamented the loss of $300 billion in oil investments globally in three years, due to the decline in oil price.
Speaking at the 2017 Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition in Lagos, Kachikwu said the losses were in oil exploration and production.
On the Nigerian side, according to the minister, the loss of these investments was due to inefficiency in the country’s security policy and inconsistency in policies.
He said investors prefer to invest the limited resources elsewhere in African countries, adding: “What we are losing, other countries in Africa are gaining”.
“The situation is very challenging when it comes to losing opportunities arising from investment”.
“For the first time in the oil sector, the decline in the oil price resulted into loss of jobs. Infrastructural gap is another factor which the decline in the price created.
“We have an infrastructural gap deficit of $5 billion because government was responsible for infrastructure and we did not engage the private sector.
“The whole idea of the new petroleum policy is to move the private sector into financing part of the projects because government cannot do it alone,’’ he said.