Global Energy Review

Nigeria

Nigeria's oil production is growing and likely to go on doing so.  The government has ambitious plans to increase output and is pressing OPEC for a higher quota, as a result.

Nigeria's production capacity rose by about 0.3 mn bpd during 2003 with the commissioning of new fields such as Total's Amenam Kpono and Shell's EA field.  Communal violence caused some areas to be shut in during 2003, but shut-downs appear to have taken place in an orderly manner without doing long-term damage to the fields.

Perhaps the most significant development during 2003 affecting the long-term outlook for Nigerian crude production was the commissioning of the country's first deep-water field, ENI's Abo discovery.  Abo is one of a series of deep-water projects due to be commissioned between now and 2008.  These include Shell's Bonga, ExxonMobil's Erha, and ChevronTexaco's Agbami fields, with further discoveries still under appraisal.  The additional capacity from these deep-water fields is estimated in the region of 0.8 mn bpd by the end of the decade.

There are also ambitious plans to continue exploration onshore and in the shallower waters of the continental shelf and to raise recovery factors at existing fields through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) schemes.  A drive by the government to ban the flaring of associated gas should also help raise Nigeria's LPG production, which is currently around 50,000 bpd.

Output has been rising steadily since 1999 and should soon exceed Nigeria's previous maximum production level of 2.3 mn bpd, which was achieved in 1979.  The government is anxious to proceed as quickly as possible with the expansion of oil production, but progress will depend a good deal upon Nigeria's ability to secure higher quotas from OPEC.  There may, in any case, be some delays to the country's ambitious deep water exploration and production programme, given the technological risks of operating in such frontier areas.

Production Outlook

Provided Nigeria can find the OPEC quotas to match its production plans, crude-oil output should rise throughout the remainder of the decade.  The full effect of the deep-water production, however, will probably not be evident until 2009-10.  Non-quota NGL production should not be much more than 0.3 mn bpd by then.

Crude-oil production is forecast as follows:

2003 2.1 mn bpd
2010 3.1 mn bpd

Nigeria, Reserves & Production, 2003

Reserves: 24.0 bn bbl
Reserves remaining: 31.3 years
Production capacity: 2.55 mn bpd
OPEC Quota (Nov '03): 2.02 mn bpd
Production: 2.12 mn bpd
Consumption: 0.22 mn bpd
Net trade: 1.90 mn bpd
Peak output *
Peak year *

Production 1991-2003

Production 1991-2003

OET Archive

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