The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has confirmed that the country’s oil production has risen to 1.6 million barrels per day, which is still short of the 1.8 million bpd quota allocated by the Oil Producting Countries Organisation (OPEC).
Revealing this at a meeting of stakeholders in the oil and gas industry called to discuss the challenges of crude oil theft and losses affecting the oil and gas industry, the group chief executive officer of NNPC, Mele Kyari, said the rectangular security approach, comprising NNPC and Partners, Regulators, Government Security Operators and the Communities, boosted by the adoption of technology, ensured the recovery of production from what it was in July 2022 to 1.67 million barrels per day.
Kyari, who was represented by the NNPCL chief upstream investment officer, Bala Wunti, at the event chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said the implementation of the Detect, Deter, Destroy, and Recover (3D strategy), the establishment of the Central Command and Control Centre for effective monitoring and coordination, the launch of the Whistle-Blowers Portal and the Crude Oil Validation Portal as well as the deployment of some of the best-in-class surveillance tools and technology have been a game changer in the fight against crude oil theft and vandalism.
The NNPCL boss stated that a key element of the collaboration has been the onboarding of the Private Security Contractors from the host communities, whose in-depth knowledge of the terrain and modus operandi of the criminals, have led to massive discoveries of illegal connections and interception of vessels ferrying stolen crude oil.
According to him, with the current sustained efforts, facilities that had been shut down have reopened, and injection of crude oil into major trunklines for evacuation to the terminals was being ramped up.
According to the NNPC boss, a lot of work has gone into changing the narrative and bringing all the industry stakeholders together to confront a common enemy.
Crude oil theft has been a major setback for Nigeria. Last August, crude oil theft forced the country’s production down to 1.1 million barrels per day, slashing the contribution of foreign exchange earnings from crude oil export from 90 per cent when production was high to 78.5 per cent as of the third quarter of 2022.
To arrest the situation, NNPCL engaged a private security, Tantita Securities Service owned by Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo (Tompolo) on August 13, 2023 for pipeline surveillance.
Also, the NNPC Ltd and the security agencies put up a control centre to provide surveillance of all the country’s oil and gas assets in the Niger Delta.
