The Nation Newspaper

Tag: barrels

  • Firm plans 400,000 barrels per day refinery

    Petrocam International ‘s plan to build a 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery will hasten Nigeria’s quest for improved locally refined products.

    Also, the firm is contemplating off-grid solution to improve power supply.

    The South African-based oil trading giant is investing in the refinery to improve fuel supply for domestic consumption which is put at 41 million litres per day, according to the monthly report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

    Speaking after the inauguration of its seventh solar- powered fuel station in Epe, Lagos, Petrocam Nigeria Limited’s Chief Executive Officer Patrick Ilo said off-grid electricity was the way out of Nigeria’s power challenges. He urged Nigerians to generate electricity from solar, biomass and wind to complement power from the national grid.

    Petrocam, he said, was generating solar power in its retail outlets, adding that issues, such as provision of power and refining of petroleum products, must be given necessary attention.

    He said Petrocam went into crude oil refining, after appraising the country’s fuel market and realising the necessity to provide such services  to help contribute to the country’s development. Ilo said Petrocam  has  deep roots in oil trading and allied services.

    “We are looking at setting up a refinery in Nigeria. The issue is topping our agenda and we will not leave any stone unturned to achieve our objective of providing a refinery that is producing optimally in the country. We have the idea of setting up a refinery in our sleeves; we are talking of a large refinery plant, that can process 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day. May be, Petrocam can start with a modular refinery and later make it a bigger refinery plant, as our efforts are geared towards improving local fuel production and consumption in Nigeria.

    “Already, Petrocam is playing well in the Nigerian downstream sub-sector of the oil and gas industry, where it has blazed the trail, by using solar to power its fuel retail outlets and adjoining roads in communities where the outlets are located. What we do is that we ensure that  the outlets are directly facing the equator in order to generate and store enough energy, as much as possible,” Ilo said.

    Solar energy, he pointed out, offers huge benefits, as it is able to power tanks containing 270,000 litres of fuel in Epe, adding that a tank is made up of 45,000 litres and that when you multiply it by six tanks, you have 270,000 litres.

    He said the government needs to deregulate the downstream sector, if its going to achieve the objective of allowing privately-owned refineries to operate in the country.

    “ In order to enable privately-  owned and  government refineries  come on stream and operate well, the deregulation of the downstream sub-sector is necesary,” saying when this happens, owners of the refineries would be able to get enough returns on their investments. “Once investors get returns that are proportionate to their investment, they are satisfied with it. When returns are coming regularly, the issue of obtaining facility from banks by investors to move the business forward, will not be a challenge in the industry,“ he added.

    On subsidy, Ilo said the government is spending huge sum on payment of subsidies to marketers, saying the government should as well spend the money on infrastructure.

  • The two million barrels per day magic

    SIR: Nigeria is currently producing about two million barrels per day of crude oil. It’s no joke producing that volume of crude oil anywhere in the world, even with our huge population.With this production we are 7th in OPEC & 14th in the world. With sufficient imagination and with our ability to sustain the curent levels till 2030 that is, for the next 13 years, we should be able to generate and transmit 50,000MW of electricity, build two million homes, build six brand new refineries of 100,000bpd each, build three brand new steel plants of five million metric tonnes and many more. The two million barrels per day we currently produce needs to be improved upon; we should be doing four million per day. However, this should be seen as a seed, not the fruits. But the big question is where is our imagination?

    David Atta, Abuja.

     

  • NNPC loses 560,000 barrels of crude to vandals, says GMD

    NNPC loses 560,000 barrels of crude to vandals, says GMD

    The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) lost 560,000 barrels of crude oil meant as feed stock to the refineries due to pipeline vandalism between January and May, Group Managing Director Dr Maikanti Baru?,said yesterday in Abuja.

    He spoke during a visit to the Commandant-General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Abdullahi Muhammadu.

    Baru said the visit was to strengthen collaboration between the NNPC and the NSCDC to better protect its oil installations/pipelines in the country.

    “Under my watch? as GMD, NNPC is committed to collaborating with the NSCDC and other government security agencies to finding lasting solution to eliminate losses and energy security threats,” he said.

    He said the activities of vandals on NNPC’s pipelines in the Niger Delta region had become unbearable, and had led to substantial decline in the country’s crude oil production.

    “The 2016 budget plan was based on 2.2 million bpd of crude production.

    “The fiscal plan is now affected due to renewed militancy with about 700,000 bpd of oil production curtailed due to pipeline vandalism,” he said.

    Baru said that over 3,000 vandalism incidents were recorded every year from 2010 to 2015, while in 2015 alone, pipeline losses? of products were over 643 million litres amounting to N51.28 billion.

    He said the domestic natural gas supply to power had also been badly affected with an estimated drop of about 50 per cent from 1,400mmscfd to below 700mmscfd.

    The NNPC boss called on the NSCDC and other security agencies to step up security and surveillance in the affected areas in the interest of the nation.

    The NSCDC boss pledged the readiness of the Corps to step up security surveillance and protection of oil installations in the country.

    He said the NSCDC personnel had been undergoing re-training to? deal with the challenge.

  • Nigeria’ll meet 40b barrels oil reserves projection, says NAPE

    Nigeria could still meet the four million barrels-per-day and 40 billion oil reserves’ projection, despite the problems in the industry, the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) has said.

    Speaking with reporters on the forthcoming Annual International Conference of the association in Lagos, the body’s outgoing President, George Osahon, said the country has the capacity to increase its daily oil production from less than 2.5million barrels to four million barrels a day, once the problems such as oil theft, pipeline vandalism and kidnapping of expatriates, among other vices are resolved.

    “If the stakeholders can work together to minimise the problems, and further face the business of boosting the production of crude oil, the better for the economy,’’ he said, adding that Nigeria is under pressure to increase its crude oil production, following the successes recorded by some countries in Africa.

    He said modern technologies have helped many Marginal Oil Field operators to boost their production in recent times, advising existing and prospective operators to toe similar path.

    He said a careful examination of the industry’s policies and oil exploration technologies must be given priority to foster growth.

    Osahoh, who is also the Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), said issues such as the signing and implementation of the Petroleum Industry Bill(PIB) must be given the desired attention to encourage the industry’s growth, adding that the association will continue to advise the government on the issues of implementation of policies outlined in the bill for growth.

    “In our own opinion, people’s perception and criticisms of the PIB cannot alter the growth of the industry. It is better the bill is passed so that the waiting game would be over. If you see the problems which the issue of divestment from the nation’s oil and gas industry by Multinational Oil Companies has caused, you would appreciate the fact the country needs PIB to drive the industry’s growth. We will try as much as possible to continually tell the National Assembly the importance of the bill in the interest of the country, but we cannot force it to pass the bill. We can only advise the government on the issue of passing the bill in the interest of the country.

    He said the National Assembly has the responsibility to modify, pass or reject the bill, advising stakeholders to make representations to the Senate to facilitate the passage of the bill.

  • Floods cut 500,000 barrels of Nigeria’s daily crude production

    Floods cut 500,000 barrels of Nigeria’s daily crude production

    •Nation loses $53.5m daily

     

    Nigeria’s oil production has been cut by 500,000 barrels of crude oil daily, due to the massive flooding that swept across the country.

    The loss translates to $53.5million daily.

    Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Director Osten Olorunsola stated this yesterday during the DPR’s third quarter media briefing in Lagos.

    He said the situation forced the country’s production down to 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) from over 2.5 million but noted that as the flood is receding, production has begun to ramp up to 2.3 million bpd.

    Mr. Olorunsola said both the big and small players are affected, but noted that the small players particularly the marginal fields’ operators are worst hit.

    “We had quite very unfortunate situation of flooding in the last couple of weeks and that certainly dipped production by 500,000 barrels per day. Quite a lot of firms and companies were hit. Actually, some companies went completely out. Companies like Sterling Energy and other little companies, especially the marginal field players. Even the big players got seriously hit, Total was completely out in OML 58, Agip was seriously hit at Obiafo, Mbede and Oguta, among other areas. They were really down and total shut down at the peak was about 500,000 bpd.”

    Olorunsola explained that crude oil reserves as at end of September stood at 31.170 billion barrels. Condensate was 5.018 billion, bringing the total liquids to 36.2 billion barrels. Total gas reserves stood at 182.750 trillion standard cubic feet out of which non associated gas (NAG) was 90.150 trillion standard cubic feet.

    Gas flaring, as at end of September, dropped to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day which is 18 per cent of total gas produced as against 25 per cent by end of last year. This is a reduction of about 5.7 per cent from volume flared last year.

    The DPR boss said gas utilisation has risen in excess of 80 per cent of total production.

    Olorunsola said the DPR was also in the process of renewing expired licences for shallow water projects of Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron and that it has begun full implementation of trucking policy for depot owners.

    He said besides the four traditional refineries, an independent oil firm – Niger Delta Petroleum Resources – has built a refinery that refines 1000 barrels per day. He praised the development, especially as it is coming from a marginal field operator.