The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said on Friday pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and other criminal activities were responsible for high cost of crude oil production in the country.
The Chief Operating Officer, Ventures and Business Development Unit in NNPC, Mr. Roland Ewubare, who disclosed this in a statement in Abuja, however, said the corporation was taking measures to bring down cost of crude oil production to $10 per barrel or below.
He said the NNPC had done a lot over the years to reduce contracting cycle adding that the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) achieved a six-month contracting cycle when he was the Services Group General Manager.
On production cuts agreed by members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its non-member allies, Ewubare affirmed that Nigeria was in full compliance with the agreed output cuts, saying claims that Nigeria has not complied with the directive were true.
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He said: “There is confusion in the market around the parameters for the production cuts. Nigeria has a full production capacity of about 2.3mbpd. We are currently producing between 1.6 and 1.7mbpd. Our OPEC quota as a result of the cuts is about 1.4mbpd.
“You and I know that condensate is not included in the computation of the cut numbers. So what we have is 1.4mbpd of crude oil.
“The little you see above 1.4mbpd is made up of condensate which does not count as part of the basis for assessing our OPEC quota.”
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