By Teddy Nwanunobi
The Federal Government has disclosed that only 1,700 reserves are currently producing crude oil, out of the 7,000 oil reserves that have been discovered in the country.
Speaking in Abuja, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), however, stated that measures were being put in place to produce oil from additional reserves in order to achieve the Federal Government’s target of 40 billion barrels oil reserves.
Nigeria, according to the Department, has the capacity to produce about three million barrels of crude daily.
“We identified all the discovered reserves. We have about 7,000 and we are producing from about 1,700 out of the 7,000 already discovered reservoirs.
“We took each of the producing reservoirs to see what kind of Enhance Oil Recovery (EOR) that we need to put. So, once we now put the EOR, that is secondary and tertiary recovery methods, technically we will grow the reserves.
“This is because those reserves are recoverable now, and technically, we will increase the production of the country,” DPR’s Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Engr. Auwalu Sarki, stated.
Valuechain reports that crude oil production in Nigeria had revolved around 1.4 million barrels per day (mbpd), following the production cut recommended by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Before the decision by OPEC and its allies (OPEC+) to cut down crude production, Nigeria was producing around two million barrels of oil per day.
Auwalu said that this was a good platform for marginal oil fields to come in to help increase and grow the country’s reserves.
“Remember we left over 40 million barrels fallow in 11 fields for 17 years. Now, we have over 100 million which we want to grow within the next couple of months,” he added.