The federal government has resolved all outstanding issues surrounding the $1.3 billion Oil Mining License (OML) 245 oil field scandal.
Minister for state for petroleum resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, who made this known, said a meeting between the Attorney general of the federation, NNPC, and officials of the disputing parties was held to address the lingering issues.
decisive steps to significantly reduce the country’s crude oil production costs in order to enhance its global competitiveness.
Lokpobiri, while speaking at the 23rd annual NOG Energy Week in Abuja, said, “Nigeria has resolved all the issues with OPL 245; soon we will be seeing an influx of investments,” Lokpobiri said on Tuesday.
He added, “The differences between this government and the previous governments is the fact that we are addressing, resolving and fixing all issues as they come”.
Lokpobiri maintained that if Nigeria is able to resolve issues around OPL 245, it could attract investment to the tune of billions of dollars and markedly change the story of the oil industry in Nigeria.
“The block has been tied down for 28 years,” he lamented.
According to him, businessmen understand only one thing. What can we do to sustain our investments and ensure profitability?
Is this investment destination globally competitive?
“What this government has successfully done is to create an atmosphere where we become globally competitive.
“Few weeks ago I tasked my team to benchmark Nigeria’s fiscals with other countries all over the world, and it was discovered that Nigeria’s fiscals are globally competitive.
“That is why many global companies that left the country are beginning to return
The minister also gave a marching order to indigenous oil firms to within the next few days come up with strategies to increase their crude production output.
The IPPG has the obligation to share with me in the next few days what their plan is to increase production. There are 28 IPPG members and each of them produce about 5,000 barrels per day.
Today they can increase it to 10,000 barrels if they make a little more investment.
He said the future of energy security in the country lies with the IPPG.
The minister also charged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to take decisive steps to significantly reduce the country’s crude oil production costs in order to enhance its global competitiveness.
According to Lokpobiri, Nigeria’s crude oil production cost is currently highest in the world.
He said that while the NNPC has said it plans to drive the cost down to at least $30 per barrel, he insisted on a target production cost of less than $20 per barrel.
“Why is Saudi Arabia’s cost less than $6 per barrel? If Saudi’s is less than $6 let us also remove all the middlemen, impediments that push up production cost so that we can be globally competitive,” he said.
He stressed that his mandate from President Bola Tinubu is to increase production to enable the country to meet our local demand and have enough to export and have the requisite petrodollars to strengthen our local economy, adding that this is what he’s been working to achieve.