Indigenous Operators Produce 6% Of Nigeria’s Oil

crudeIndependent and marginal oil fields’ operators as at the end of the third quarter, Q3, accounted for about 5.72 per cent of total crude oil and condensates production, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC financial statement.

The NNPC, in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for October 2015, said the Independents/Marginal Fields operators produced 32.825 million barrels of crude oil and condensates in the nine-month period, compared to total production of 574.325 million barrels between January and September 2015.

Using an average oil price of $53.78 per barrel, as stipulated in the NNPC report, the 32.825 million barrels of crude oil and condensates produced by the Independents/Marginal Fields operators translates to $1.765 billion, an equivalent of N353.07 billion.

The report gave the production breakdown as follows:

• January 2015 – 4.057 million barrels;
• February – 4.134 million barrels in;
• March – 5.224 million barrels;
• April – 3.28 million barrels in;
• May – 2.126 million barrels;
• June – 3.372 million barrels;
• July – 4.359 million barrels;
• August – 2.242 million barrels, and;
• September – 4.024 million barrels

Independents and marginal fields

In general, the report put total crude production in Nigeria in the nine-month period at 574.325 million barrels, an average of 2.1 million barrels per day, at an estimated value of $30.887 billion or N6.177 trillion.

Further breakdown is shown below:

• January – 68.067 million barrels;
• February – 61.861 million barrels;
• March – 64.156 million barrels;
• April – 60.84 million barrels;
• May – 63.49 million barrels;
• June – 59.09 million barrels;
• July – 67.5 million;
• August – 63.34 million, and;
• September – 65.98 million barrels.

In addition to the independents and marginal fields operators’ contribution, the Production Sharing Companies, PSC, recorded the highest crude oil and condensates production during the review period, accounting for 239.623 million barrels or 41.72 per cent of total production.

The Joint Venture, JV Companies followed, accounting for 31.7 per cent of total crude oil production with 182.29 barrels of crude oil and condensates.

This was followed by Alternative Finance with 16.3 per cent or 93.569 million barrels, while the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, produced 26.017 million barrels representing 4.53 per cent of total production.

On NPDC’s performance, the NNPC report said: “NPDC production is expected to hit production level of 250,000 barrel per day, after the completion of the on-going NPDC re-kitting project.

“Production from NPDC wholly operated assets amounted to 7.855 million barrels or 30 per cent of total production; with Okono Okpoho (OML 119) alone producing more than 79 per cent of the NPDC operated Assets or 24.08 per cent of the total NPDC production”.

“Also on the NPDC operated JV assets, in which NPDC own 55 per cent controlling interest, crude oil production amounted to 10.803 million barrels or 42 per cent of the NPDC total production. On the JV assets not operated by NPDC, production level stood at 7.359 million barrels or 28 per cent of the company’s production.”