Nigeria - Govt. Moves, NPDC & The Locals.

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) is the E&P and downstream regulator and supervises all operations carried out under oil and gas licences and leases. The operations include E&P and marketing of crude oil, refined products and natural gas. NNPC is responsible for upstream and downstream development. NNPC's upstream operations are managed by the E&P Directorate which consists of five strategic business units (SBUs):

These SBUs are collectively responsible for surveys, seismic data collection and interpretation, crude oil and gas exploration, production, transportation, storage and marketing. Through the NAPIMS, NNPC supervises and manages state investment in the petroleum industry. Since its inception in the 1970s, NNPC and its units have undergone constant restructuring.

Based in Abuja, the capital, the federal government has taken a set of measures to protect the E&P operators in the Niger Delta and other onshore areas. The US has provided the armed forces with gunboats to help counter oil thieves or sabotage. Since 2005, Abuja has had the accounts of all oil companies operating in Nigeria, including NNPC and NPDC, audited by Hart of the UK. Done under the auspices of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, part of a world push for openness, this authenticates the firms' claims about daily crude oil production (see the backgrond in omt5NigrProspJul30-07 - see chronology of the main petroleum events in gmt5NigrGeoAug3-09).

NPDC operations are improving, in June having found oil in its OML-64 in Delta State. The well, drilled to 11,150 ft, encountered six major intervals, three out of which are bearing light/sweet oil with a net thickness of about 50 ft. The well flowed at 1,284-3,110 b/d with no water content. A field development plan is being worked out for production to start up in late 2009 or early 2010. NPDC currently produces 50,000-70,000 b/d of crude oil. It says it will raise this to 150,000 b/d in 2010. But this target had been aimed at for 2008 (see omt16NigrFieldsAug6-07).

NPDC intends to operate in other African countries and elsewhere. In its expansions, NPDC is following the models of StatoilHydro and Petrobras. NPDC is developing six offshore oilfields off Nigeria with IOCs, with its partners including Shell, Agip, Chevron, Total and some private Nigerian firms. NPDC is bidding for oil blocks in other African countries.

Indigenous oil producers include Conoil and Moni Polo. Together with NPDC, PSC-based ventures and Addax Petroleum, a Geneva-based Canadian firm, this group's outputs should rise to 270,000 b/d in the coming years.

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