The Nigeria’s oil and gas industry would require $10 billion (N3.05 trillion) over the next three years to increase crude oil production from 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 3 million bpd.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, who made this disclosure in the current Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Bulletin, said investment is needed to maintain essential work.
According to Kachikwu, “Nigeria’s normal production level is about 2.2m bpd and the government would like to raise it to 3m bpd. Just to get the fields online and cap them will require an average of about $10 billion per year in investments over the next three to four years.”
He added that there are also some dedicated projects in the Bonga oil field, noting that Italy’s Agip plans to spend about $10 billion, while Royal Dutch Shell is hoping to spend $10 to $11billion on the field. He also said; “We are fairly close to identifying dedicated investments upstream. Downstream is a challenge. We need to invest in our refineries. We need to do pipelines.” He put the industry’s infrastructure gap in the midstream and downstream sectors to be about $30 to $40billion.
