Oil production: FG implementing measures to address crude theft, insecurity – NUPRC

The Federal Government has said that it had begun implementation of measures to address insecurity and crude theft affecting oil production in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer, Mr Gbenga Komolafe, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), said this at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) 2021 conference on Tuesday in Lagos.

It was earlier reported that the theme of the NAPE conference was, “Petroleum Exploration and Production in a New World: What Next After the Global Crisis.”

Komolafe said oil production in Nigeria had declined to an average of 1.6 million barrels per day in 2021.

He maintained that this decline in production could be attributed to theft, insecurity, aging facilities, decline in exploration and production enhancement initiatives.

“As the upstream technical and commercial regulator, we are committed to addressing these issues to increase our reserves to 40 billion barrels and raise our production to three millionbarrels per day through the following measures:

“Initiation of Public Private Partnership (PPP) involving the security agencies, private operators and other stakeholders to address the challenging issues of crude oil theft, sabotage and pipeline vandalism.

“Collaborative efforts between operators, communities and the deployment of state-of-the-art technology to monitor pipelines in remote areas is on course.

“Already, as a commission, we have commenced consultation with relevant stakeholders toward the achievement of these objectives,” Komolafe said.

He said a more aggressive policy on routine Asset Integrity Management to curb crude leakages and spills caused by aging facilities would be adopted.

“An initiative to reduce the cost of production while also benchmarking cost across terrain is ongoing.

“We are making provisions to incentivise drilling targets at deeper horizons and to also provide guidelines to ensure seismic acquisition design to image deep plays.

“Attractive incentive is being made to encourage multi-client and speculative data companies to acquire state-of-the-art data in open acreage to facilitate exploration activities,” he said.

He said the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act would effectively stimulate necessary investments in the industry, improve investor confidence and address major community issues.

Komolafe said the commission, as a 21st century regulator, was positioned to provide initiatives aimed at entrenching transparency, efficiency and accountability.

Earlier, Mrs Patricia Ochogbu, President, NAPE, said oil and gas would remain relevant in the energy mix both now and in the foreseeable future as the world gears toward energy transition.

Ochogbu, however, noted that Africa and particularly Nigeria, needs more of safe and clean energy due to its attendant benefits.

She said explorationists must focus on deploying new technologies that would reduce carbon emissions in exploration activities and optimise the nation’s oil and gas resources.