The Nigerian National Pe
troleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced that  Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), its subsidiary, would commence production of 250,000 barrels of oil daily from next year..
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Andrew Yakubu, who disclosed this, added that NPDC was already being repositioned to take its current production level of 130,000 barrels per day to the new projection.
A statement by the corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Department, Ohi Alegbe, said that Yakubu spoke at the graduation ceremony of Chief Officers Management Development Programme of batches 069 and 072 in Abuja.
He said that NPDC’s assets base had grown with the assignment of new oil mining leases, adding that the company was aggressively exploring in “offshore, onshore and the inland basins of Chad, Anambra, Benue, Bida and Sokoto-Dahomey”.
He said that the exploration was in line with the strategic direction to support the Federal Government to increase national crude oil reserve and production to 40 billion barrels and four million barrels per day, respectively.
“We are as well carrying out in-field developments which have resulted in increased reserve.
“With the intensified approach, including the expedited action on new projects like Egina, the reserve and production targets are realisable,” he said.
Yakubu also expressed NNPC’s readiness to reinvigorate domestic consumption of the liquefied natural gas otherwise known as “cooking gas” across the country.
He said that NNPC was determined to reduce the pressure on kerosene consumption and that it was refocusing its strategy to encourage and aggressively grow the consumption of LPG.
According to him, the LPG provides a cleaner and cheaper energy alternative.
“NNPC’s footprint in the domestic gas market has attained unprecedented growth. “This is with the commissioning of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company’s (NPDC) 100 million standard cubic feet of gas per day in Oredo Gas Processing Facilities and the acquisition of the new assets.
He revealed that“NPDC is now the biggest producer and supplier of gas into the domestic market, contributing over 400 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
The GMD said that over 1,000 square kilometres of seismic data had been acquired in the Chad Basin in spite of the security situation in Borno.
He stated that revamping of the corporation’s critical downstream facilities such as the refineries, depots, pipelines and jetties, had remained the focus of the management.
He said that the efforts would ensure steady supply and distribution of petroleum products nationwide and implored the graduands to deploy their expertise to enhance NNPC’s efficiency, integrity, accountability and transparency.
During the occasion, the Group Executive Director, Corporate Services of NNPC, Dr Dan Efebo, reiterated the corporation’s determination to train and retrain its workforce.
He said the members of staff remained the cornerstone of any business concern, adding that since the training programme was established 24 years ago, it had recorded a total of 3,521 participants.