The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has declared a state of emergency on oil and gas production in Nigeria.

Group Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mele Kyari, disclosed this in a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 23rd edition of the Nigeria Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition (NOG Energy Week) in Abuja, on Tuesday.

“We have decided to stop the debate. We have declared war on the challenges affecting our crude oil production. War means war. We have the right tools.

“We know what to fight. We know what we have to do at the level of assets. We have engaged our partners. And we will work together to improve the situation,” he declared.

According to him, a detailed analysis of assets revealed that Nigeria can conveniently produce two million barrels of crude oil per day without deploying new rigs, but the major impediment to achieving that remains the inability of players to act in a timely manner.

He said the “war” would help NNPC and its partners to speedily clear all identified obstacles to effective and efficient production such as delays in procurement processes, which have become a challenge in the industry.

On medium to long-term measures aimed at boosting and sustaining production, Kyari said NNPC would replace all the old crude oil pipelines built over four decades ago and also introduce a rig sharing programme with its partners to ensure that production rigs stay in the country for between four and five years which is the standard practice in most climes.

He called on all players in the industry to collaborate towards reducing the cost of production and boosting production to target levels.

He expressed the Company’s commitment to investing in critical midstream gas infrastructure such as the Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben (OB3) and the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipelines to boost domestic gas production and supply for power generation, industrial development and economic prosperity of the country.

On Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Kyari observed that NNPC has since keyed into the Presidential CNG drive, adding that in conjunction with partners such as NIPCO Gas, NNPC Ltd has built a number of CNG stations, 12 of which will be commissioned on Thursday in Lagos and Abuja.

The opening ceremony of the event also saw goodwill messages and keynotes presented by the Secretary General of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Haitham Al Ghais; Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), Mohamed Hamel; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo; Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen; as well as the Chairman, Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG), Abdulrazaq Isa.