The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) yesterday told divesting multinational oil companies as well as International Oil Companies (IOCs) giving difficult conditions for oil exploration in the country to rethink their strategies.
Group Chief Executive Officer of the national oil company, Mr Mele Kyari, told an audiences at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) conference in Abuja that the era of non-ending negotiations as joint venture partners was over.
Kyari admitted that processes in the industry had been overly slow, blaming the “sheer inability of all of us, including our partners of inability to act quickly and in a timely manner.”
Kyari insisted that the time for debates was over, explaining that it was time to produce more oil and more gas, rather than the unending debates.
“Let me just speak my mind. We went down on our production, both oil and gas nowhere near our capacity or ability. We can blame anything from oil theft, pipeline integrity and so on. But the bottom line is the… sheer inability of all of us, our partners, with no exception, including the NNPC to act quickly in a timely manner.
“That is why as the partner of 80 per cent of those who produce oil and gas in this country, we have decided that we’ll stop the debate and we have declared a war, meaning we have the right troops.
“We know what we have to do at the level of assets and we have engaged. Any partner that doesn’t do what they should do, we will get it done. This is the only way of doing things. We can’t wait for anyone. We are moving on. We cannot afford to negotiate any further. So, we will stop the debate and that is why we have a war room,” he stated.
On the replacement of oil pipelines, which he said had been in existence for over 60 years, Kyari stated that Nigeria will no longer wait for IOCs to fix the problem, describing it as a national decision.
In a move towards increasing Nigeria’s crude oil production and growing its reserves, NNPC declared a state of emergency on production in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
According to him, a detailed analysis of assets revealed that Nigeria can conveniently produce 2 million barrels of crude oil per day without deploying new rigs.
On medium to long-term measures aimed at boosting and sustaining production, Kyari said NNPC would replace all the old crude oil pipelines and introduce a rig sharing programme with its partners to ensure that production rigs stay in the country for between four and five years, which is the standard practice in most climes.
He called on all players in the industry to collaborate towards reducing the cost of production and boosting production to target levels.
