An indigenous oil and gas company, MSM group has improved output from Nigeria’s Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 98 by 126 million barrels to 224 million barrels from 118 million barrels capacity that was handed over to it by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).

The chairman of the company, Muazzam Mairawani, who disclosed this in Abuja yesterday, commended President Bola Tinubu for supporting the company to stage a comeback to the oil and gas sector it exited in 2017.

The MSM boss explained that though his firm pulled out of the oil sector in 2017, it is back in full operation after securing the backing of Tinubu.

“We left the oil and gas sector in 2017. We had to come back because of the encouragement we received from President Bola Tinubu. I approached the President and solicited his support for MSM Group on how we can enhance Nigeria’s production in addition to what the NNPCL is producing. I am glad to report that we have not let the President down,” he explained.

Mairawani hinted that the OPL 98, which harboured 118 million barrels, had jumped by an additional 126 million barrels within six months of its takeover.

“When OPL 98 was handed over to us, it had about 118 million barrels. But within the first six months, we expanded the capacity of the asset by another 126 million barrels. Now, the OPL 98 has a total of 224 million barrels,” he said.

Speaking on the secret behind the increment, the MSM chief said the oil firm moved away from the well-known but less effective seismic technology to a more efficient technology that delivers more products.

“Normally, companies do seismic in their operations. But based on the technical expertise we have at MSM Oil and Gas, we do not use seismic. We just use the data,” he stated.

He revealed plans by MSM group to attract $2.5 billion investment into Nigeria, saying: “We are almost at 99 per cent of closing the IPO in the United States of America under MSM Frontier Capital Acquisition. We are going to be raising $2.5 billion within this month. Our target is to attract $2.7 billion worth of investment to Nigeria.”