Nigeria’s crude oil daily production recorded an upward swing of about 2.09million barrels in 2018, translating to a 9 per cent increment, compared with the 2017 average daily production of 1.86million barrels.

Pitched against the low-level daily crude oil production in 2016 and what obtains now, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, said the nation had maintained a line of consistent year-on-year improvement.

For the crude oil increment and other milestones recorded by NNPC in the out-gone 2018, Dr. Baru, who made the submission in a comprehensive end of year message to staff of the corporation, touted the new business models his team has emplaced in the national oil company’s old and new business entitles as raison d’être for the giant strides.

A release yesterday in Abuja by NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, said the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Duke Oil, NIDAS and Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL), were among the re-engineered companies listed by the NNPC GMD in his statement.

Ughamadu said Dr. Baru singled out NPDC, the corporation’s Upstream flagship company, as the major contributor to the Industry’s success story in 2018, expressing enthusiasm on the 52 per cent daily crude oil production growth by the company vis-à-vis its 2017 performance.

Dr. Baru in the end-of-year statement explained that the average production from NPDC’s operated assets alone grew from an average of 108,000 of oil per day (bod) in 2017 to 165,000bod in 2018, describing the feat as the strongest production growth within the Oil Industry in recent times, even as he added that it was worth being celebrated. (NAN)