Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude exporter, is left with 36.89 billion barrels in its crude oil reserves, 110 million barrels deficit from the reserves strenght one year ago.
The Director, Department of Petroleun Resources (DPR), Auwalu Sarki, who in a virtual meeting of the DPR managment and oil and gas editors on Wednesday, gave this official data of reserves as at first of January, 2020, maintained that this same reserves had 37 billion barrels in them as at the first of January, 2019.
What Nigeria lost in crude reserves, Sarki said, it gained in natural gas reserves with 203.16 trillion cubic feet of gas as at January 1, 2020, compared to 210 trillion cubic feet of gas in reserves as at January 1, 2019.
Giving a breakdown of the reserves volume, the DPR Director said that the crude oil in the reserves stood at 31.418 billion barrels while the volume of condensate in the reserves was 5.476 billion barrels.
He attributed the fall in the reserves to the dearth of discovery in 2019.
The volume in our reserves as at January 1, 2020 is 36.89 billion barrels. In our gas reserves at this same period, we have 203.16 trillion cubic feet of gas. But as at January 1, 2019, we have 37 billion barrels in our oil reserves while at this same period what we had i our gas reserves was 201 trncf. This fall in oil reserves is attributed to the fact that we never had discovery in 2019 and that is why we are putting a lot of strategies in place to increase the reserves,” he said while fielding a question from newsmen.
Stating that the DPR is the Regulatory agency responsible for the opportunities in the sector, Sarki maintained that there should be a focus the opportunities that the agencies create.
“We are not a regulator per se but an opportunity house, which guarantee investments as well as enbles participation of Nigerian and non-Nigerian companies in the industry,” he said, maintaining that having “put these together, we call DPR and opportunity house.”
Parts of DPR responsibilities, he continued, is “Upstream operations monitoring and regulations, downstream operations monitoring and regulations, and service providers monitoring and regulation.”
He added that COVID-19 has altered the 800mmscuf gas commercialisation deals.
“We are the first in the World with the success rate. In fact the World Bank, when it saw what we are doing, approached us and signified readiness to partner with us with other stakeholders.
“What is holding the programme is COVID-19 becuae with it there is no physical assesment of the lease (fields). Without the assesment the process is halted,” he declared.
