Nigeria plans to
almost double oil production and triple its refining capacity by 2025, reviving
previous pledges for the country’s oil independence.
The OPEC member is looking to pump 4 MMbopd by 2025 and
increase refining capacity to 1.5 MMbpd, Maikanti Baru, managing director of
state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., said at a conference Thursday in
the capital Abuja. “Nigeria needs to unlock new barrels as quickly as
possible,” he said.
Africa’s biggest oil producer previously set a 4 MMbopd
production target for 2010, and successively delayed it over the years. The
country, where output peaked near 2.5 MMbpd in the middle of the last decade,
has grappled with militant attacks, leakages and theft at its oil
infrastructure.
“Targets such as these are not new to NNPC,” said Cheta Nwanze, an analyst at
Lagos-based SBM Intelligence. “Nigeria has not met a single production target
for at least a decade now, in many cases because of security concerns.”
Nigeria also wants to be self-reliant in meeting its fuel demand and cut
imports that put a strain on foreign reserves. Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe
Kachikwu told the BBC in 2017 that he’d step down if the country doesn’t
achieve that goal by the end of this year. The target is likely to be missed as
the four state-owned refineries struggle to fully utilize their combined
445,000 bopd capacity following years of neglect and mismanagement.
Baru said part of the additional refining would come from a 650,000 bopd
complex being built near Lagos by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person. NNPC
is working with private investors for the remainder, Baru said.
“The desperate need for an improvement in local refining capacity has been
obvious for decades,” Nwanze said. The 2025 plan is “extremely optimistic.”
NNPC, which pumps crude from the country’s fields in partnership with
international companies like Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp.,
returned to profit in 2018 after reporting losses in at least the three
previous years, according to statements on its website. That was mainly due to
the strong performance of its oil and gas production unit. Its refineries had a
$365 million operating loss.
- Media Report