26 April 2014 Abuja – The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that it is ready to reinvigorate and increase the domestic consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), which is also known as cooking gas across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
It stated in a statement yesterday in Abuja of its willingness to encourage greater use of cooking gas against any other form of energy for cooking in homes across the country.
The statement which was signed by its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Ohi Alegbe in Abuja quoted its Group Managing Director, Andrew Yakubu to have made this commitment while delivering a key note address at the combined graduation ceremony of Chief Officers Management Development Programme (COMDP) of batches 069 to 072 at the corporation’s towers.
The COMDP was established 24 years ago by the Group Learning Department of the NNPC and has recorded a total of 3,521 participants so far. The programme is designed to impart managerial skills to members of staff who are promoted from senior staff cadre to management cadre.
Yakubu noted that as part of efforts to reduce the pressure on kerosene consumption, the NNPC is refocusing its strategy to encourage and aggressively grow the consumption of LPG which provides a cleaner and cheaper alternative energy.
He said that NNPC’s footprint in the domestic gas market has attained unprecedented growth with the commissioning of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC’s) 100 million standard cubic feet (scuf) of gas per day Oredo gas processing facilities as well as the acquisition of new oil assets.
“NPDC is now the biggest producer and supplier of gas into the domestic market, contributing over 400 million standard cubic feet of gas per day,” Yakubu said.
He explained that the NPDC is being repositioned to become a medium sized independent Exploration and Production (E&P) company with a production capacity of at least 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the year 2015.
According to him, today, NPDC assets base has grown with the assignment of new oil mining leases. He thus stressed that the management under his watch is determined to further pursue new strategies to grow production to the target of 250,000bpd by 2015 from the current level of 130,000bpd.
Yakubu noted that in line with the strategic direction to support the federal government to increase Nigeria’s crude oil reserve and production to 40 billion and 4 million barrels per day (mbpd), there is aggressive exploration campaign in offshore, onshore and the inland basins of Chad, Anambra, Benue, Bida and Sokoto Dahomey.
“We are as well carrying out infield developments which have resulted in increased reserve and with the intensified approach, including the expedited action on new projects like Egina, the reserve and production targets is realizable,” he added.
He also disclosed that over 1,000 square kilometres of seismic data have been acquired in the Chad Basin in spite of the security situation in Borno State, while revamp of the corporation’s critical downstream facilities such as the refineries, depots, pipelines and jetties have remained the focus of its management.
– This Day