In a recent situation update by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), it was revealed that reserves are depleting very quickly. Pointing out that this posed a threat to Nigeria's economic future, the NNPC begged oil and gas exploration companies, professionals and other stakeholders to focus on increasing the nation’s oil and gas reserve base to match national aspirations to increase oil production.
NNPC managing director Dr Maikanti Baru, who disclosed this when the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (Nape) hosted him in Abuja, said the corporation is ready to partner with them to address the problem. He added that the NNPC is willing to work with stakeholders in the oil and gas industry to grow the nation’s fast depleting reserves in order to increase productivity in the petroleum sector.
Dr Bari said: “Our national gas demand forecast to year 2020, domestic plus export, indicates a rapid growth to 15bn standard cubic feet per day (bscfd), meaning current reserve levels can only sustain that production for 35 years if we do not increase the 2bscfd gas reserves base which require three trillion cubic feet (tcf) to replace production yearly. Some of our earlier drilled non-commercial holes could be turned around if we deploy requisite technologies.”
In addition, Dr Baru said Nigeria's drive for industrialisation risks being truncated, as the country’s aspirations were to increase oil production to 4m barrels per day and meet gas demand of 15bn bscfd by 2020, required for industrialisation and consumption. He further lamented that less than 3% of all oil wells drilled in the Niger Delta Basin, both onshore and swamp, were deeper than 15,000 feet, adding that a greater number of these wells had not gone beyond the 10,000 feet as a high pressure regime seemed to be a limiting factor.
Dr Baru further explained that the 2016 national average oil production of 1.9m barrels per day was low, partly due to oil infrastructure vandalism. He stressed the need for stakeholders to share data and use common available resources to reduce cost of operations in the area of rig-sharing, vessel sharing and synergy in projects development, adding that this had become even expedient in this era of low oil prices and security challenges.
Nape president Nosa Omorodion, said the association was ready to support NNPC in its drive to grow reserves towards increased production in all the frontier basins. On frontier exploration, Dr Baru said the NNPC was progressing in exploration efforts in the Chad Basin, the Benue Trough and other frontier basins to shore up the reserve base of the country.
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