From Simon Utebor, Yenagoa
An oil industry expert, Dr. Victor Ekpenyong, has urged the country to leverage on existing oil reserves, to boost oil production and earn more money to meet revenue shortfalls, as well as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC’s) quota.
Ekpenyong, the chief executive officer of Kenyon International West Africa Ltd (KIWAL), a well control services firm, gave the advice yesterday during an interactive session with reporters in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, on the condition of the oil industry.
The KIWAL boss, who applauded the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) for ongoing repairs on major oil export pipelines, noted that upon conclusion of repair schedules, export capacity would rise.
He said vandalism and oil theft had hampered the country’s oil production and prevented the nation from harnessing its full production capacity.
He said oil production was being limited by breach of pipelines that evacuated crude from oilfields to export terminals.
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Ekpenyong noted that with the rebound of the Forcados Export Terminal, which had been out of service, there would be an increase of export capacity by at least 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) when scheduled repairs on the export trunkline was completed in the next one week.
He said there was the need to revive idle assets to boost oil production to meet the OPEC quota of 1.8 million bpd for Nigeria.
Ekenyong said there was an existing production capacity to meet the shortfalls in production from a little over one million bpd current output.
He said: “Reports available from NNPCL have it that repairs on Trans Forcados Export Trunkline is almost concluded and the Forcados Export Terminal will be up again and it has capacity to handle up to 400,000 bpd of oil export.
“The sections of the Trans Niger Delta Pipeline (TNP), which feed the Bonny Crude Export Terminal, are also scheduled to be ready as well, so we need to revamp the idle wells to produce enough to meet our OPEC quota and earn more revenue.”
He noted that the country was yet to produce more and leverage the supply cuts occasioned by the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, which had pushed up international crude oil prices.
He said proposed divestments by the government from oil assets in non-producing oil reserves would provide opportunities for investors to enter into partnership with the government to increase oil production.
He said the challenges being faced due to the deregulation of the downstream sector will be overcome as soon as efforts to increase domestic refining capacity begin to yield results.
Ekpenyong added: “The effort being made by the government to increase local refining is very massive. I learnt the rehabilitation work at Port Harcourt refinery has gone far for the President to promise that the plant will be back in December.
“There is also ongoing work in Warri Refinery. These will increase local production of refined petroleum products and reduce imports and subsequent pressure on the Naira at the foreign exchange market.”
He said NNPCL remained the dominant importer of refined petroleum products and noted that the $3 billion facility being put in place by the government would enable more private sector players to augment the supply deficit.