Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, has assured that Nigeria would find the formula for peace in the Niger Delta region of the country by 2017.
Kachikwu, who is currently at the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Producer-Consumer conference in Tokyo, Japan, said Nigeria was at 2.1 million barrels of oil production per day, before the renewed hostilities by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA).
Speaking to pressmen on the “turmoil” in the region, Kachikwu said: “Well, I won’t call it turmoil anymore, I would call it a bit of disruption”.
“We’ve passed the turmoil stage, we have moved from 1.4 million barrels a day to 1.9.We were at 2.1 before we had the last incident.
“It is work in progress, we are putting every energy we can. President Muhammadu Buhari is very focused on trying to find solutions to these problems, and we are working hard on it. We are seeing solutions come up, we are seeing acceptance to what we are doing.
Kachikwu said he was optimistic that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) deal will become a reality to push oil prices to $50 per barrel, and above. The Minister, who presided over OPEC’s 168th ordinary meeting in Vienna, also stated that a failure to reach a deal will crunch prices below $45 a barrel.
