04 April 2015, Lagos – Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is facing low exploration and drilling activities as only two companies are currently engaged in activities in the industry, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
This may be as a result of the non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and the uncertainty in the crude oil market. Specifically, as at November and December last year, only Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Addax carried out exploration/drilling activities during the months under review.
The NNPC, which made this disclosure in its report released at the weekend, said that the operations were carried out on three wells. According to the corporation, in October only SPDC, Mobil Producing Nigeria and Addax carried out exploration/drilling activities from three wells. It put the total country’s production from wellhead at 55.71 million barrels.
“This figure was short of actual as wellhead production data from some companies was not available. Terminal (fiscalised) production total for the month was about 69.20 million barrels representing 2.23 million barrels per day, 5.84 per cent higher over production of 65.38 million barrels or 2.10 million barrels per day in November, 2014”.
The report said that total crude oil and condensates lifting for both domestic and export was about 65.93 million barrels. Oil companies lifted about 38.13 million barrels (57.83 per cent), while NNPC lifted 27.80 million barrels (42.17 per cent).
It added that lifting by fiscal regime showed 31.80, 27.27, and 6.86 million barrels for JVC, PSC/SC, and others respectively. “Out of NNPC’s liftings, 20.23 million barrels was for Federation Account (This includes, FIRS, DPR, PPMC Offshore, PPMC Crude Exchange & MCA accounts) while 7.58 million barrels was for domestic use. “AF lifting was about 11.43 million barrels. NNPC lifted 7.24 million barrels (63.32 per cent) while JVC companies (Mobill, Total E&P, FIELDS Chevron, Shell and NAOC) lifted 4.19 million barrels (36.68 per cent).
Lifting’s by Companies are part of the JVCs export while the lifting by NNPC adds to the Federation account lifting”.
It disclosed that the country has begun exportation of petroleum products to Europe, Asia and far East, Africa and South America. The country’s total production of natural gas stood at 221.63bscf, which is higher than the November figure by 7.47 per cent. “About 44.57bscf of the total production was flared.
Nigeria’s total Natural gas liquid produced for the month of December was 85,079mt out of which Mobil had about 51 per cent and NNPC 49 per cent. A total of 70,196mt was lifted for the month of December. The NNPC said that 1,044 thousand barrels of dry crude oil, condensate and slop was received by the three Refineries, KRPC, PHRC and WRPC. “With an opening stock of 2,933 thousand barrels, total Crude Oil available for processing was 3,977 thousand barrels out of which 1,396 thousand barrels was processed.
The respective average capacity utilization during the month was 4.19 per cent, 19.24 per cent and 0.00 per cent for KRPC, PHRC and WRPC respectively.
*Roseline Okere – Guardian
