By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, has disclosed that Nigeria, one of the major exporters of crude oil in the world, will work towards cutting the cost of producing the commodity, which stands at about $23 per barrel at the moment.
Last week, the price of Brent Crude, under which Nigeria’s grade of oil is categorized, traded above $60 per barrel on the global market.
The Minister, who made a maiden visit to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) last Thursday, said his vision for the industry was to continue with implementation of the 7 Big Wins initiative of his predecessor.
He further said he would make efforts to reducing cost of production per barrel, eliminate security challenges and vandalization of production infrastructure.
In addition, he was he wants to increase LPG penetration across the country, improve integrity of measuring equipment at the terminals, amongst others.
In his remarks, the acting director of DPR, Mr Ahmad Rufai, who received the Minister, reassured him of the agency’s commitment in the implementation and realization of his vision for the industry.
The Director observed that the DPR had already started developing a policy framework in line with his vision.
After introduction of top management staff to the Minister, Mr Rufai led on a tour of some facilities in the agency; the National Data Repository (NDR), which is the data hub for the entire oil and gas industry in Nigeria; the National Production Monitoring System (NPMS), which has recently been upgraded to monitor Realtime Crude Oil; LNG; and Petroleum Products vessels into and outside the country.
The Minister and his delegation were full of commendation for the department over the facilities inspected, saying, “This is very impressive”.
The highpoint of the visit was the presentation of a tablet to Mr Sylva to enable him monitor crude oil exports and petroleum products importation on a real time basis.
He was also presented with some of the department’s regulatory publications like the Environmental Guidelines and Standards for the Petroleum Industry in Nigeria, Compendium of Oil and Gas Laws and Regulations amongst others.
