NPDC now Nigeria’s 5th largest oil producer – NNPC

The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the flagship upstream arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has attained the position as fifth largest oil exploration and Production Company in Nigeria.

NPDC Managing Director, Mr. Yusuf Matashi, disclosed this in Benin, an NNPC statement said.

The MD said that NPDC was poised to grow its equity production from the current 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 300,000 bpd by 2018 and by 2019 and 2020 its production is expected to hit 400,000 bpd and 500,000 bpd, respectively.

Checks by Daily Trust showed that as at 2015 ExxonMobil averaged over 290,000 bpd to rank as the highest oil producing company in Nigeria followed by Chevron with 240,000 bpd.

Shell’s Nigerian crude oil production at 191,000 bpd was the third largest daily crude oil output by any major company while Total was the fourth at 156, 164 bpd.

Matashi, in the statement signed by NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu said having attained the position as fifth largest oil producer in Nigeria; the NPDC was poised to efficiently manage its portfolios to achieve the new target.

“The NPDC has 55 per cent equity in nine blocks of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 4, 26, 30, 34, 38, 40, 41, 42 and 55; Nonequity operations in three blocks of selected NNPC Joint Venture fields; 60 per cent participatory interest in four blocks of OMLs 60, 61, 62 and 63 and 100 per cent ownership of seven blocks of OMLs 11, 13, 64, 65, 66, 111 and 119. In a nutshell, the Company is involved in 29 concessions which comprises 22 OMLs and seven Oil Prospecting leases,” Matashi said.

He explained that the company had varied interests in seven deepwater concessions and successfully executed a Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) with communities in OMLs 30 and 34, adding that NPDC achieved a major feat by successfully drilling and completing five horizontal wells in nine months in OML 26, leading to production of an additional 7, 000 bpd.

The MD added that NPDC had successfully turnaround OML 40 asset from 0 bpd to 12, 000 bpd which underlined the company’s rising profile as the 7th largest owner and operator of Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) in Nigeria, with FPSO Mystra having 1.03 million of crude producibility.

He also announced that the company NPDC was the biggest and largest gas producer in the country and was also the highest supplier of gas to the domestic market.