Crude Oil Production Rises To 1.9M Barrels Per Day
Speaking when he formerly handed over to the newly appointed Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Dr. Maikanti Baru, the minister said the upstream sector of the oil industry was being repositioned to attain about 3million barrels per day.
Lately, Nigeria’s crude production had dropped to about 1.1 million barrels following attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta region by the militant group, Niger Delta Avengers.
Expressing satisfaction in the performance of NNPC under his leadership, the minister said the Corporation has been positioned as a profit focus organisation, compared to what it was before he came on board.
While thanking President Muhammadu Buhari for giving him the opportunity to serve as both the Minister of State Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director of NNPC, Kachikwu noted that public perception of NNPC was gradually changing for the better.
On the NNPC Joint Venture (JV) Cash Calls, he said, “JV cash call funding has been one major challenge and we have created jointly a process of covering that gap and paying the arrears of over $6 billion and we are on threshold of finalising that. I think we should be almost at the point of sign-off in the next one week and I have told him (Baru) that I will complete that process and hand out over to them for execution.
“That will fundamentally change the upstream, it will enable upstream find the funding that it needs, when it needs it and it will remove the delays you had in terms of getting upstream development and hopefully it will inject the 100 per cent performance in upstream and hopefully increase your barrels from present 2.3 million to 3 million in the next two years,”he said.
On the Corporation’s revenue, he said, that the NNPC in the last two months has been able to pay its contributions to the Federation Account allocation Committee (FAAC) by 100 per cent up from about 60-70 per cent when he came on board.
He described the N217 million profit made by NNPC in its May operations, as massive achievement given that when he took over the corporation’s losses were in excess of N150 billion.
Kachikwu who called for support for the new NNPC helmsman, stated that a massive restructuring of the corporation has taken place and the gains should be sustained, restating the commitment that by 2018, 60 per cent of refined products importation will stop and by 2019 Nigeria will become a net exporter of refined petroleum products.
Thanking president Buhari for the opportunity to serve, Kachikwu stated: “It is surprising that in 11 months, I have managed to serve as group managing director of NNPC, I have managed to serve as minister of state for petroleum. I have served as the president of OPEC. I have served as president of APPA and I have just been appointed as the chairman of NNPC board, all in 11 months. There are not many people in the world who would have that sort of opportunity in that time frame or given that opportunity by a leader.
“I have always said it that it is not how long you serve, it is what impact you make when you served. Public service chair are swivel chairs and they are made swivel for a purpose. So that they rotate and as you go somebody else comes in and continues the contributions that you made.
“And therefore the society benefits from the difference in approaches, contributions and ideas. We must not get so carried away emotionally by attachments to those chairs. You must just focus on seeing it as a service, do your bit, do it well and try and leave a legacy and then move on because that is the only that the society gets better. It is not by holding on to those chairs.”
He further added that the removal of petrol subsidy has saved the country about N1.4 trillion, disclosing that national petrol consumption has also fallen by 30 per cent.
Meanwhile, Baru in his response, thanked the minister for recommending him to President Buhari for his new position, assuring him that he would work to deepen the on-going reform started by Kachikwu in the corporation.
The new NNPC GMD disclosed that he will implement the new business model and grant needed autonomy to the strategic business units by providing relevant directions and control that would ensure their growth and profitability.
He further assure that under his watch, the Corporation will continue to explore ways of relieving government from the burden of cash calls obligations as well as address and defray the agreed cash call arrears to the international oil companies.
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