Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has said that by July 2023, Nigeria’s crude oil production will reach 1.8 million barrels per day and 2 million barrels per day by December 2023.
He said this during an interview on Channels Television on June 1. During the interview, Kyari said Nigerians must understand that when it comes to crude oil production, condensates are just as important as crude oil and should also be classified as liquids, adding up to the country’s overall production output.
He said:
“The budget of this country is based on the cumulative production of our crude oil and condensates Mind you, sometimes, these condensates are more expensive than the crude oil, so it’s the total liquids we are dealing with. “The total number of liquids as of today is up to 1.6 million barrels per day. We have a line of sight, by the end of July, we will hit 1.8 million barrels per day, and we will hit 2 million barrels per day by the end of December.”
He further stated that President Tinubu has already instructed the security agencies to tackle all security threats and the additional layers of intervention as well as increased investments will enable Nigeria to realize these oil production goals.
Kyari said that when the Dangote Refinery starts churning out products, they will be transported across the country using trucks. He highlighted the fact that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries will come onstream by the end of the year.
He said: “We did have some supply chain issues which is a global problem. There is a crisis in the global marine sector. Getting products to the locations is a huge challenge and we had some delays in the delivery of some of our equipment.
“However, the ambition is to get all our refineries working and the net effect is that this country will become an exporter of petroleum products.”
In April 2023, Nigeria produced 998,602 barrels per day of crude oil, 66,317 barrels per day of blended condensates, and 180,110 barrels per day of unblended condensates. These figures make up 1.2 million barrels per day recorded for the month of April 2023.
Meanwhile, the country continues to face oil production threats ranging from the shift to renewable energy which has resulted in a lack of oil-centric investments, economic, political, and security risks, crude production sabotage as well as pipeline vandalism, and technical issues.