OKETOLA reports
Not less than 864 million barrels of oil have been produced in Nigeria in the past 12 months. The Minster of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Dieziani Alison-Madueke, describes this as a sign that the country’s oil and gas industry is on a “sustainable path of growth.”
Speaking during the recent Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja, the minister said the country had maintained an oil production of 2.4 million barrels per day in the past 12 months.
This was contained in the transcript of the minister’s speech made available to our correspondent on Wednesday.
Based on this daily output, therefore, experts calculated a monthly production of 72 million bpd and a yearly production of 864 million bpd.
Alison-Madueke said, “Since the assumption into office of the President in 2011, the oil and gas sector has witnessed renewed wave of activities, which has placed the industry on sustainable path of growth; and in the upstream subsector, we have in the past 12 months maintained an oil production of 2.4 million barrels per day.
“We have also increased gas production from 6.3 to 7.8mscuf/pd and we have decreased gas flares at this time to less than 11 per cent compared to 20 per cent in 2010 and it is still not adequate but the intention of course is through our gas industrialisation programmes and other measures that are being put in place, the fight is to ensure that gas flare is reduced to two per cent by 2017.”
In spite of the stable oil production in the country in the past 12 months, she decried the Federal Government’s loss of over $12bn (N1.87tn) to oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the last one year.
Speaking at a stakeholders meeting on the rising security in the sector recently in Lagos, the minister explained that $5bn was spent in the last one year on pipeline repairs, while the amount lost to crude theft was valued at $7bn.
“In the last six months, the level of oil theft in the country has become alarming,” she lamented
The Managing Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, who corroborated the minister, said the country was losing $6bn yearly to crude oil theft. He said militancy in Nigeria had been replaced by industrial scale oil theft and sabotage.
“We, and others, have had to shut in significant production, spend huge amounts on replacing and repairing hardware and deploying massive resources to clean up oil spills,” he said.
He urged the Federal Government to tackle the insecurity in the oil and gas industry to attract investments.
Sunmonu decried the high cost of doing business in Nigeria and the spate of oil theft and pipeline vandalism, which had contributed negatively to the production level.
The petroleum minister, however, said the Federal Government was already making effort to slow the tide of oil theft in the country.
This, the minister said at the NOG conference, came up in the discussion President Goodluck Jonathan had with Prime Minister David Cameron in England recently.
In view of this, Alison-Madueke said the Petroleum Industry Bill, currently awaiting passage by the National Assembly, represented the next major step in progressing the transformation in the oil and gas sector; adding that the law would have to be implemented in a manner that would not disrupt oil and gas operations or negatively impact the operations and independence of the International Oil Companies or in fact, the revenues accruing to the government from these operations.
“We will recognise the complexities of this transition period after the PIB is passed into law and to this end an implementation framework is been produced and cross functional teams are context for organisational transition.”
Speaking further, the minister said the PIB would usher in new opportunities in the nation’s oil and gas industry.
She disclosed this while speaking at the Africa Energy Summit session during the Cambridge Energy Research Associationin Houston, Texas, United States.
A statement signed by the NNPC’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ms. Tumini Green, quoted the minister as saying, “The PIB will ensure the development of our abundant oil and gas reserves, encourage significant infrastructural development and situate the gas revolution.”
The Minister, who was represented by the NNPC Group Executive Director, Exploration and Production, Mr. Abiye Membere, said aside from attracting new investors to the nation’s oil and gas industry, the PIB would also ensure that new fiscal regime was put in place to address all issues of equity among stakeholders.
According to her, a new acreage allocation system will be put in place and the time frame for the allotees to explore or drop will be strictly monitored.
“In addition, acreage sizes will be reduced and small players will be allowed to participate,” she added.
The instability in the Niger Delta, Alison-Madueke maintained, would be taken care of by the PIB and the country’s revenue would be well-managed and transparently allocated for a balanced development of the country.
The minister stated that the continued reluctance of the IOCs to sincerely implement in-country capacity building to drive the local content implementation was a big challenge.
“If after 50 years of operation in Nigeria, foreign companies are preferred to indigenous companies; it clearly shows that there is a problem. This has to change,” she said.
On host communities, she stated that their non-involvement in the oil and gas projects created distrust between the investors and the host communities because they were not originally involved.
“The host communities must be carried along and seriously involved in the project from the beginning, and well planned Corporate Social Responsibility activities must be put in place to avoid destruction of Investors’ facilities and disruption of operations,” Alison-Madueke said.
The minister pledged to share ideas with other oil producing African nation so as to avoid the pitfalls that countries like Nigeria have had.
In his remarks, the Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs USA Department of State, Mr. Carlos Pascual, advised African countries to link oil and gas development with the development of energy and power.
He emphasised the important position of Nigeria in the African continent and called on other African countries in the oil and gas business to look up to Nigeria and avoid her mistakes while emulating her successes in order to get it right. He said the issue of security and kidnapping in African nations remained a big concern to the world and called on the African Heads of States to come together and find a lasting solution to the problem.
