Nigeria places more emphasis on offshore production

Nigeria government now places more emphasis on deep offshore oil and gas production, a senior official from Nigeria's Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said. Addressing the on-going Conference of Society of Petroleum Engineers in the Nigerian capital Abuja, DPR Director Mac Ofuhie said the move was part of the efforts to capture more value for hydrocarbon resources.
"Nigeria had drilled 40 exploration wells in the deep offshore by the end of 2003," he said.

According to the DPR director, several billions of barrels of crude oil and trillion cf (million of cm) of gas have been discovered in 23 of the 40 wells.
"Although the search for hydrocarbon resources in the deep offshore is in its infancy, exploration and development of these resources have achieved phenomenal success due to the use of modern technology," Ofuhie said. The deep offshore potentials in Nigeria had opened up the west coast for further exploration, he added.

He said Nigeria was employing the state-of-the-art technology to overcome development challenges, achieve environmental protection as well as reduce cost of oil and gas production. He urged operators to ensure sustainability of the success recorded in the deep offshore so that the government and stakeholders can have maximum return for their investment.
Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the sixth largest oil exporter in the world with a crude oil output of over 2 mm bpd.