By Onu Okorie
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Oil, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri has expressed the possibility of Nigeria hitting two million barrels of daily crude oil production by December 2024.
He stated this during a courtesy visit by the Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo and his entourage yesterday in Abuja.
According to him, “I want to also see how we can hit $2 million by December. I want to see how we can hit, you know, $2.5 million in the short term.”
“A few days ago the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission NUPRC organized a program, which was a product of our own consultation, where they said they want to increase production by one million barrels.
“And I told them that one million barrels is too small. We can do a lot better than that. Because I know that during the COVID era, without any new investment, production in Nigeria rose about 2.4 million barrels.
“And those wells are still there. So once we address the security concerns, once we address the other concerns, once we address the evacuation issues, we can easily go back to 2.4 million barrels.
“So I gave them a chance that Nigeria will not wait for 24 months to add another one million barrels. No, we have to add that one million barrels within the shortest possible time.”
“When I came, into this office as Minister, we were doing barely about million barrels. But today we are doing about 1.6 million and 1.7 million barrels, inclusive of condensing. But that’s not where I want to be.”
“Right now we have brought back the confidence of the investing community. And several companies are coming, you know, to invest billions of dollars in the oil and gas sector.”
He assured Governor Ododo that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources will partner with Kogi State Government and use the Frontier Exploration Fund to do the exploration that is needed in Kogi and other states where speculation is rife about the possibility of availability of crude oil in commercial quantity.
“And I can assure you that we will not relent until we achieve that. The reason is that the easiest way we can come out of economic problems in the country is through the oil and gas sectors.
“And we have it in abundance in Nigeria, including Kogi. What we need to do is to make the right investment so that we can extract this God-given deposit, God-given resources to the market for sale.”
“I’ve already put in plans to go to those states and then aggressively do exploration. For the past few years, Nigeria hasn’t actually done much on exploration. You know, and that is why our reserves are not growing.”
“The government will use seismic exploratory activities that will enable us to increase our reserves, not only in crude oil, but also in gas. And so I want to assure you that there’s funding that’s available for that purpose.
And government is committed to ensuring that we do that for the overall strategic national interest of Nigeria.” He stated
According to him, “so there’s no way we will not find oil, more oil, like we have found in Kogi in other parts of Nigeria. The reason why we haven’t been able to update our records is because no exploration has been done in the last 12 years.
Speaking earlier, Ododo said that his government is working assiduously to unlock the economic potentials and mineral resources that abound in Kogi State.
“We want to unlock our potentials to make sure the natural gifts gifted us by God Almighty start working for us during your own time. Sir, as you know, your Ministry is a big ocean that attracts everyone to go there to look for a net to catch a very big fish.
Kogi State is a baby state that is so blessed with so many natural gifts and in abundant quantity. Hence, we have it, we have been boasting, we have been publishing, we have been talking about it. Let me tell you, that it has never been working for us as a state and the entire nation.”
On his part also the Kogi state commissioner for Finance, reiterated that the Sate is blessed with a lot of resources, as such, and they have not been useful to the state to the fullest.
He said that the State has developed a 32-year development plan by former Governor Yaya Bello which the present Governor is consolidating upon.
According to him, “it is very important for us to hit the ground running so as to achieve this plan. In the area of security, the blueprint developed by the leader, the former Governor, is what we are working on.”
“There cannot be any meaningful development or investment in the state where we have issues of insecurity. The Governor has taken upon himself by ensuring that a lot of investment is geared towards securing the people of the state, our resources, and the investors. And it’s on this note that you know today that in Kogui State, we have more coming up in the area of solid mineral.” He stated.
