By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian state oil company NNPC Ltd is committed to reversing declining crude production and will replace partners that fail to fulfil their joint venture commitments on output, group chief executive, Mele Kyari, said on Tuesday.
Oil output in Africa’s top exporter has fallen in recent years, hobbled by large-scale theft and sabotage, and the exit of oil majors such as Exxon Mobil and Shell Plc from land fields to focus on offshore exploration.
Kyari said oil production had reached 2 million barrels per day (bpd) in recent months but he added that it had not been possible to maintain, citing limited access to capital and bureaucratic delays that he vowed to address.
“We want to grow production … we have the reserves but we want to produce,” Kyari told an energy conference in Abuja, saying “any partner that does not do what it is supposed to do” to help boost production would be removed from joint contracts.
NNPC holds joint ventures and production-sharing contracts with the oil majors that pump about 70% of Nigerian oil.
Kyari also announced plans to replace ageing pipelines and establish a “rig-share club” with partners to ensure access to drilling equipment, a strategy commonly used by state oil companies globally.
“We keep on talking about increasing production, yet we can’t guarantee the availability of rigs in this country. We cannot continue that way,” he said.
(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Editing by Helen Popper)
