NNPC Vows To Increase Oil Production As Brent Hits $105/barrel

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has vowed to increase oil production following the rise in the price of brent to $105/barrel price on Tuesday.

The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, made the vow while speaking at the ongoing Nigeria International Energy Summit 2022 in Abuja on Tuesday.

Kyari said the increase in the country’s oil production became necessary in order to gain from the rising price of crude.

He said, “We must clear the resources of today and sustain the transition through some form of resilience until we get to 2060.

“And the easiest way to clear the wealth of today so that we can have the resources that will keep us through this transition is to immediately increase domestic crude oil production. There is no other way to do it.

“We have challenges today, we have made losses but we are doing something about the security situation in our areas of operations.

“You will see the impacts and effects very soon and the industry will continue to rely on the production that will come from those places.”

Naija News reports that the NNPC boss comments came the same day crude rose to the highest price ever recorded since about 14 years following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Since the war began in Ukraine, crude oil (Brent) price had kept climbing, as it moved up to $106.27/barrel on Tuesday, rising by $8.3 or 8.47 per cent when compared to its cost the previous day.

Early last month, OPEC increased Nigeria’s crude oil production target for the month of March despite the fact that the country had been missing its approved monthly output targets.

OPEC raised Nigeria’s oil production target for March 2022 to 1.718 million barrels per day, indicating a marginal increase from the 1.701 million barrels per day target that was approved for Nigeria in February.

Nigeria missed its crude oil output target for January 2022, pumping 1.46 million barrels per day against a target of 1.683 million bpd as approved by OPEC.