NNPC Vows To Increase Production As Brent Crosses $105/barrel

Brent, the crude against which Nigeria’s oil is priced, crossed the $105/barrel price on Tuesday, as it rose to the highest price ever recorded since about 14 years following the ongoing war in Ukraine after it was invaded by neighbouring Russia.

In order to gain from the rising price of crude, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on Tuesday vowed to increase Nigeria’s oil production, as the country had not been meeting its OPEC crude oil production quota lately.

Early last month, OPEC increased Nigeria’s crude oil production target for the month of March despite the fact that the country had been missing its approved monthly output targets.

OPEC raised Nigeria’s oil production target for March 2022 to 1.718 million barrels per day, indicating a marginal increase from the 1.701 million barrels per day target that was approved for Nigeria in February.

The Economic Confidential had exclusively reported that Nigeria missed its crude oil output target for January 2022, pumping 1.46 million barrels per day against a target of 1.683 million bpd as approved by OPEC.

Since the war began in Ukraine, crude oil (Brent) price had kept climbing, as it moved up to $106.27/barrel on Tuesday, rising by $8.3 or 8.47 per cent when compared to its cost the previous day.

Speaking at the ongoing Nigeria International Energy Summit 2022 in Abuja, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, vowed that the oil firm would increase Nigeria’s oil production.

He said, “We must clear the resources of today and sustain the transition through some form of resilience until we get to 2060.

“And the easiest way to clear the wealth of today so that we can have the resources that will keep us through this transition is to immediately increase domestic crude oil production. There is no other way to do it.”

Kyari added, “We have challenges today, we have made losses but we are doing something about the security situation in our areas of operations.

“You will see the impacts and effects very soon and the industry will continue to rely on the production that will come from those places.”