New projects push up Nigeria's crude oil production to 2.62m bpd

Nigeria's crude oil production is expected to rise to 2.62 million barrels per day (bpd) this new year, helped by the inception of new oil projects from the Usan (180,000 bpd) and the Egina (150,000 to 200,000 bpd).

Productions in the two oil fields are expected to boost Nigeria’s production by not less than 330,000 bpd, which if conditions remained stable would make the country’s daily production to top 2.60 million bpd.

Research and Intelligence Group, Business Monitor International (BMI), predicts that Nigeria will experience exponential growth and transformation from the increased activities in the Oil and Gas sector.

''Gas demand is set to rise at an annual average growth rate of 9.27 per cent. Booming demand from the government's ambitious power sector plans and large export engagements will thus bolster production growth. We see Nigerian gas consumption rising from an estimated 5.22bcm in 2011 to 13.17bcm by 2021,' Business News quoted the research group as saying.

From the analysis , the stable and non-interruption of exploration activities of this projects should step up the level of Nigeria's oil output to about 2.6m barrels per day, a positive outlook for the Oil and Gas sector.

This will accelerate Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings from the crude oil sales, and also boost revenue for the Government, enabling it to meet various obligations of Infrastructural development and Empowerment programmes; that should create more jobs and tackling the issue of unemployment.

Viewing the Developmental plans of the current administration in the Country, the research group believes that the plans are achievable, provided focus is sustained on the projects and transparency is ensured in its Policy Implementation plans.

'In terms of infrastructure, the authorities have ambitious plans in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and refining. However, the downstream sector remains highly inefficient and, despite a nameplate capacity of 505,000bpd, actual output is often around 100,000bpd. Many projects have been proposed, but there has been no update indicating that any are progressing,' BMI said in a report.

It also urged the Federal Government to aggressively work towards diversifying the economy from over-reliance on crude oil, saying such will boost the non-oil sectors and provide more revenues for the country.