In November, we reached crude oil production of 1.8 million barrels per day, NNPC says

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited claims to have achieved crude oil production of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) and gas production of 7.4 standard cubic feet per day (scfd) in November.

The revelation was made available on Thursday by the NNPC spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, after a press conference in Abuja.

The national oil company said it is also targeting about 2 million barrels per day by the end of the year.

What NNPC says

Speaking at the press conference, the Group CEO of NNPC, Mele Kyari, congratulated the Production War Room Team that anchored the production recovery process.

“The team has done a tremendous job of not only driving this project forward, but also escalating production to expected levels that are acceptable to our shareholders in the short and long term based on the mandates we have from the President, the Honorable Member. Minister and the board”, Kyari said.

On his part, the Senior Business Adviser to the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lawal Musa, disclosed that this feat was achieved through the joint efforts of Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract partners, the Office of the National Security Advisor, as well as government and private security services.
He said the interventions that led to the recovery of production are taking place in every segment of the production chain, with security forces keeping a close eye on the pipelines.

“We are confident that with this same momentum and with the active collaboration of all stakeholders, especially on the safety front, we can see the opportunity to reach 2mbpd by the end of the year.” he declared.

What you need to know

NNPC’s claim of producing 1.8 million barrels of crude oil per day comes a few days after OPEC released its monthly data. This shows that Nigerian crude production only grew to 1.43 million barrels per day in October.

NNPC did not specify in its press conference whether the raw production figure included both mixed condensate and unmixed condensate.

While November data from OPEC and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) have yet to be released, there is currently no independent data to support NNPC’s claim that Nigeria is producing as much as 1.8 million barrels per day of crude oil.
It is important to note that an increase in crude oil production would also mean an increase in foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria, which could help stabilize the local currency, the naira, which is yet to find its equilibrium in the foreign exchange market .