Oil: Nigeria now produces 1.78 million bpd — Kachikwu

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, has said that Nigeria now produces 1.78 million barrels of crude oil per day (bpd).

Speaking in Abuja Wednesday, Mr. Kachikwu added that the nation was expecting output from Egina oilfield to reach 150,000 bpd by the end of the month which could boost total production.

Last week, French multinational oil and gas company, Total, said it had started production from the giant Egina Oilfield. The oil field is located 1,600 metres of water depths, 150 kilometres off the coast of Nigeria.

According to Arnaud Breuillac, Total’s Exploration and Production president, the field would produce 200,000 barrels of oil per day, which represents around 10 percent of Nigeria’s production.

Reuters reports that Mr. Kachikwu said Nigeria aimed to produce 2.2 million barrels in 2019.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had at its meeting agreed on production cuts. The agreement puts Nigeria’s output around 1.74 million, excluding extremely light oil known as condensates.

Mr. Kachikwu said the Petroleum Ministry would check production outputs from the oil field.

“The work that we have at the ministry is to determine what component of that 150,000 barrels is pure crude and what is condensates,” he said. “If it is pure crude it raises certain other implications in terms of the OPEC quota. If it is condensates then obviously we smile.”

SOURCE: Premiumtimes.com