The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), has once again, restated the growing trending that will lead oil equity production to 500,000 bpd by year 2020.
Speaking at the ongoing Nigerian Content Workshop in Owerri, Imo State, the Managing Director of NPDC, Mr. Yusuf Matashi, however, linked success of the target to efficiency of local content regime in the industry.
He was quick to stress that in order to meet the reserve growth of 40 billion barrels in vision 2020, indigenous E&P companies have a big role to play.
Already, NPDC is partnering with some industry players to form Assets Management Teams (AMT) with mandate to achieve the set target.
Anchoring his position on his lead paper; ‘Prospects and Challenges of Indigenous E&P Company,’ Matashi traced key challenges that can derail the target including paucity of fund because of the capital intensive nature of the industry.
Other problems according to him cut across inability to access capital market, Professional knowledge gaps, dealing with local communities, insecurity; crude oil theft and Pipeline Vandalism.
He fingered issues of low appetite for long term investment and loss of jobs in the industry as frustrating investors’ full participation.
In his submission, the best bet in solving the puzzle is to first of all strengthen financial bases of local banks to support E&P activities.
Continuing, Matashi argued that “Partnerships among Indigenous E&P companies should be encouraged for better performance, share risks with other E&P companies by having common infrastructures should encouraged and community contractors can be engaged to protect the pipelines and other assets”.
He used the summit to highlight key achievements of NPDC since he took over, revealing that “the rise in assets to 2bn bbl and 10 tcf oil and gas reserves respectively; equity oil and gas production of 180kbbl and 700MMscfd was achieved with 100% Nigerian workers”.
