CRUDE oil production from
Nigeria’s marginal fields being operated largely by local companies has reached
22,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), according to Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah,
chairman of Emerald Energy Resources Limited.
A former Nigerian presidential special adviser on petroleum,
Egbogah said this at the inaugural lecture of the Abuja chapter of the Nigerian
Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE).
In his paper entitled, ‘Nigeria oil and gas: Yesterday, today
and a guide for the future,’ he stated that based on the current work programme
of marginal field operators, their production would increase to between 40,000
bopd and 50,000 bopd by 2014 or 2015.
According to him, oil production from Nigerian independents
peaked about 110,000 bopd in 2005 with Conoil and Moni Pulo accounting for 70 per
cent of this output.
Egbogah maintained that the greatest obstacle to growth of
Nigerian independents to making significant impact on the national production,
which currently stands at an average of about 2.5 million barrels of oil per
day, is lack of capacity and capital.
He said Dubri Oil is Nigeria’s oldest independent producer
having been in operation by 1987 while the indigenous programme started between
1990 and 1991 but true major step to encourage Nigerians began in 2007 when 52
indigenous companies were given licenses to operate leases in the Niger Delta
and Anambra Basins.
To further encourage increased indigenous participation, Egbogah
said the government in 2004 licensed 31 Nigerian indigenous companies to
operate 24 marginal fields but only seven marginal fields operators produce
about 22,000 bopd with about two of them accounting for 60 percent of the
production.
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