Nigeria’s crude oil output has hit 1.8 million barrels per day, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Oil, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has said.
He disclosed this on Tuesday while declaring open the 25th Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) Energy Week in Abuja.
He also said the Federal Government has engaged PwC to benchmark over 270 fees, taxes and levies imposed across the oil and gas industry as part of efforts to streamline the fiscal regime.
He said Nigeria’s crude oil production was about one million barrels per day when he assumed office in August 2023 after President Bola Tinubu directed his team to remove bottlenecks hindering growth in the sector.
According to him, the latest weekly production report from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) showed that the country is now producing above 1.8 million barrels of oil per day.
Lokpobiri also disclosed that the number of active drilling rigs had increased from about 14 in 2023 to more than 60, attributing the growth to improved investor confidence driven by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the successful completion of divestments by international oil companies.
He said the divestments had seen Renaissance acquire Shell’s onshore assets, Seplat take over ExxonMobil’s assets, while Oando completed the acquisition of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company’s assets.
He noted that indigenous operators now account for more than 60 per cent of the country’s daily crude oil production of 1.8 million barrels, adding that international oil companies had not exited Nigeria but had instead shifted their investments to deep offshore operations.