State-Owned NPDC now Nigeria’s Fifth Largest Oil Producer

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Monday named its upstream oil exploration and production subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, as the fifth largest oil producer in Nigeria.

The NPDC Managing Director, Yusuf Matashi, said in Benin that the company which currently produces 180,000 barrels per day, bpd, plans to grow its equity production to 300,000 bpd by 2018; 400,000 bpd by 2019 and 500,000 bpd by 2020.

“Having attained the position as fifth largest Exploration and Production Oil Producer in the Nigeria, due to the ongoing transformation in NNPC, I am confident the NPDC will efficiently manage its portfolios to achieve the new targets,” he said.

Mr. Matashi did not mention the four companies ahead of NPDC.

Industry data list Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC as accounting for Nigeria’s highest oil production capacity among the joint venture operating companies with the NNPC, over 900,000 bpd.

The others include Exonmobil Corporation, with about 600,000bpd; Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, with over 400,000 bpd and Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, with about 250,000 bpd.

The NPDC, he pointed out, controls 55 per cent equity in nine Oil Mining Leases, OMLs in the country, namely 4, 26, 30, 34, 38, 40, 41, 42 and 55, apart from non-equity operations in three oil blocks of selected NNPC Joint Venture fields.

Besides, there are also 60 per cent participatory interest in four OMLs, including 60, 61, 62 and 63, in addition to 100 per cent ownership of seven OMLs, including 11, 13, 64, 65, 66, 111 and 119.

This brings to its involvement in a total of 29 oil concessions, comprising 22 OMLs and seven Oil Prospecting leases, OPLs.

The NPDC, he said, with varied interests in seven deep-water concessions, also successfully executed a Global Memorandum of Understanding, GMoUs, with communities in OMLs 30 and 34.

Again, he said the company achieved a major feat recently by successfully drilling and completing five horizontal wells in nine months, in OML 26, leading to the production of an additional 7,000 bpd.

Other achievement included successful turnaround of OML 40 asset from zero to 12,000 bpd to underline the company’s rising profile as the seventh largest owner and operator of Floating Production Storage and Offloading, FPSO in Nigeria, with FPSO Mystra having 1.03 million of crude production capacity.

In addition, Mr. Matashi said the NPDC also carried out some intervention activities which led to the peak production of approximately 10,000 bpd in OML 65 in June 2017.

In the gas sector, he said the NPDC at the moment was not only the country’s largest gas producer but also the highest supplier to the domestic market.

“NPDC aggressive gas pursuit since 2009 has also raised its profile as the highest single supplier of gas to the domestic market with an average of 700 million standard cubic feet per day,” Mr. Matashi said.

“With the recent completion of the Utorogu non-Associated Gas 2 plant, about 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, mmscf/d added to the system; the Oredo 2 gas plant also added 100 mmscfd, while the successful re-entry of Odidi gas plant brought additional 40 mmscfd of gas,” he said.