NPDC targets 500,000 barrels per day by 2022

The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), an upstream subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says it will increase its crude oil production to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) before 2022.

This target was announced in Abuja on Thursday by the NNPC Group Managing Director, Dr Maikanti Baru, in a statement by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, the corporation’s spokesman.

Baru, who doubles as Chairman of the NPDC board disclosed that the company was currently supplying 50 per cent of the West African Gas Pipeline system.

He added that it was the ‘in-thing’ to have more gas assets and commended the company for living up to expectations.

Baru directed that NPDC’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with host communities be tied to the availability of the lines, saying “as stakeholders, they share in both our success and losses as well”.

The Managing Director of the company, Mr Yusuf Matashi, was quoted as saying that judging from the meteoric growth the company had witnessed since 2016, the target of 500,000 barrels per day was realisable by 2022.

He said the board of the company would address issues of processes and procedures necessary to drive a major oil company like the NPDC.

”The NPDC currently produces about 200,000 barrels per day and going by its work programme, it will increase to 300,000 barrels per day this year,” he said.