The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has said that Nigeria will soon attain two million barrels of daily crude oil production target.
The minister, in a statement by his spokesman, Horatius Egua, attributed the loss of revenue from crude production to theft, pipeline vandalism and decayed infrastructure, but noted that the government was tackling it.
He said, “We are very confident that Nigeria will achieve the two million barrel per day crude oil production target very soon. The government is doing everything possible to get to where we should be and everyone is working hard to achieve this.”
Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd, Mele Kyari, on Friday, said crude oil production has grown to 1.6 million barrels per day from about 1m barrels late last year after an onslaught against oil thieves.
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The minister said the major sources of crude oil losses have primarily been theft, pipeline vandalism and production deferment as a result of pipeline non-availability.
“It is a known fact that the major losses of crude oil in the country have been through theft and destruction of oil pipelines. Again we also know that some of the oil infrastructures are old and decayed and cannot perform at maximum capacity. And there is also the issue of lack of investments in fossil fuel in the country and the drive towards renewable energy has really hampered new investments in this sector,” he said.
Sylva, therefore, urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to harmoniously work together to ensure that the constraints and impending challenges in the optimal crude oil production volume were speedily addressed to boost national revenue.
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