The Nigerian Government has urged indigenous homegrown oil producers to up their contribution to the national crude oil basket from the current 10 percent to 30 percent within the next five years.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, gave the charge at the closing ceremony of the Nigerian International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) held in Abuja last week.
Kachikwu said the nation aspires to pump of 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day by 2023 and the expectation is that indigenous producers will contribute about 25 or 30 percent of the projected volume.
The Minister also announced that he had directed the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to pursue a strategic plan that will ensure that a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel is constructed 100 percent in-country within the next 10 years.
He acknowledged that a lot of progress was recorded in this regard with the Total Exploration and Production’s Egina FPSO, hence the next level was to achieve 100 percent manufacture in Nigeria, so as to create more employment opportunities, retain spend and domicile technology.
Another strategy that will deepen Local Content in the country according to the Minister is “Project 100” whereby “the Federal Government will identify critical 100 companies that are in the background offering services but do not have the capital to expand and buy the latest technologies and skills. We will work with big oil companies to help provide guaranteed work and financial support for them to grow.”
He also reiterated his call for operating companies to lower their cost of producing crude oil, cautioning that government might be forced to stop production from expensive fields.
He said, “I will hate to take a costly barrel to the market when I have a cheap barrel. So everybody needs to drive down cost to the $15 concept we have set as the ideal cost of producing oil in this country and not $22 or $23.
“Two companies have met that and I will like to get other companies to do same. There will be incentives both in terms of access to the market and willingness to produce and incentives in terms of what we are going to give to any company that is the least cost producer.”
