The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, says the Federal Government is targeting to grow  crude oil production to 2.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) by the end of January, 2019.

Kachikwu made the disclosure during the presentation of the ministry’s achievements in three years (2016 to 2018) and awards to staff in Abuja on Thursday.

He said that by the end of 2019, crude oil output would have hit 2.5 million barrels based on the coming on stream of the Egina field and the recently approved 30 field works which had the capability of increasing Nigeria’s output by 500,000 barrels per day.

“Crude oil production had been sustained at a fairly large level. We started at 800,000 barrels and we have grown it to about two million barrels. We should be doing more but for the cyclical difficulties in terms of occasional pipeline disruptions and occasional closure for purpose of maintenance.”

“We are averaging about two million barrels and about 300,000 of that are roughly condensates. Really, by the end of January 2019, we should have grown production to about 2.2 million barrels which have been our signpost.”

“In addition to that, there are 30 other field works that have been approved by the Department of Petroleum Resources, which have the capacity of adding about 500,000 barrels per day production,’’ he said

According to Kachikwu, by the end of 2019, the country will be averaging 2.5 million barrels production, which will be the first time it will be done in the country.

The minister said that the oil reserves had been grown by over 600 million barrels, rising from 36.18 million barrels to 37.2 million barrels.

He noted that government had been able to grow the gas reserves from 192 trillion cubic feet to 199.09 trillion cubic feet of gas in two years.

Kachikwu said, “We discovered so many new fields, like Owowo. We have been able to grow rig activity in the country. When we assumed office, the rig activity in the country was about two to three rigs that were operating in Nigeria at the time. As at 2017, we had about 21 rigs in operation, up from about 16 rigs in operation in 2016.”

“Hopefully, with the big FPSOs, it is beginning to look as if there are possibilities in Nigeria. We expect to see a lot more rig activity in Nigeria.’’ (NAN)