The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has disclosed that Nigeria is targeting 2.4 million barrels of crude oil per day (mbpd) in output in 2016,
Kachikwu spoke recently in Abuja while outlining his broad strategy for the country’s oil and gas sector for the year.
The Minister who also doubles as the NNPC GMD said that even though the target of 2.4mbpd was not used as a production benchmark for the 2016 budget, he explained that the production volume would be pursued by his ministry.
The minister however noted that about 200,000bpd of the planned total would be dedicated to domestic refining, while 2.2mbpd would be kept for export.
According to him, the country would have been doing 2.3mbpd, but for the attack that was recorded on one of Shell’s Forcados pipeline recently.
“In terms of volumes, I think we are producing at 100 per cent. Before the Shell pipeline incident which happened about a week ago, we were already hitting about 2.3mbpd up from about 2.18mbpd.
“The target this year really, without putting that in the budget, is about 2.4mbpd and to dedicate some of that to total refining capacity and keep our 2.2mb as whole as we can.
“That is still the target we are shooting for and I think that if we have a 100 per cent performance in terms of funding and oil companies are going full blast, so we will see things happen,” Kachikwu said.