Nigeria banks on Forcados, shut-in wells to pump two million bpd

• Oil producers shut-in 1.2m bpd over theft, vandalism
• NUPRC insists oil benchmark, OPEC quotas feasible as IOCs show optimism

Nigeria might be pumping above two million barrels per day of crude oil, given new development on the 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) Forcados export terminal and moves to reopen shut-in wells.

Disclosing the one-year scorecard of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), which came as an offshoot of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, said as much as 1.2 million barrels of oil are currently shut-in across different wells, following prevailing challenges, especially crude oil theft and vandalism.

He said: “I’m quite optimistic that the nation has the capacity to meet its national oil production demand within the shortest possible time; that is to meet the quota of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The quota, at the moment, is about 1.8 million barrels. The nation has the capacity to meet that volume.”

He said over 100,000 barrels per day are being lost to crude oil theft, and that the major issue affecting crude oil production in the country remains the downtime being experienced on the Forcados pipeline.

According to him, the line will be able to move the country’s production from 1.1 million barrels per day to 1.5 million.

Komolafe said: “We have about 1.2 million barrels that are shut-in consistently, as a result of the impact of crude oil theft. So, we have to identify which of the shut-in wells can come on stream.

“Based on what I said, if we’re able, based on our target, to have, I mean, maybe 40 to 50 per cent of the shut-in volumes, you will realise that it’s going to be very easy for us to have, like 500,000 barrels, to add to what we have.

“So, our projection is that we could actually come back to hit over 2 million barrels a day, as a nation; that is meeting and surpassing our OPEC quota.”

When asked about revenue generated by the agency, remittances to government coffers, and what the agency spent, Komolafe did not give a direct answer, stressing that the NUPRC would surpass its revenue projections.