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MINISTER of State for Petroleum Resources, Edmund Daukoru, says discoveries in the deep-water concessions have added seven billion barrels.....
MINISTER of State for Petroleum Resources, Edmund Daukoru, says discoveries in the deep-water concessions have added seven billion barrels of crude to the national reserve in the last seven years.
He told the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) conference on Monday in Abuja that 26 trillion cubic feet of gas (tcft) were also added to the nation's total gas reserves put at 187 tcft.
The nation's reserves stood at 35 million barrels with daily production at 2.4 million barrels.
He listed major discoveries within the period to include Bonga, Abo, Agbami, Erha and Akpo.
According to him, Nigeria is well positioned to play an important role in OPEC's effort to keep the international market well supplied in 2006 under normal conditions.
"Key production projects in deep offshore areas of the Niger Delta are expected to raise production by 500,000 barrels per day by the third quarter of this year,'' Daukoru said.
He said export from the Gulf of Guinea dominated by Nigeria to the U.S. currently stood at 16 per cent and could reach 25 per cent by 2015.
The minister said this development called for enhanced investment commensurate with the opportunities on offer in the Gulf of Guinea.
He said application of the state-of-the-art technology, deployment of capital and know-how must be prioritised to continually meet the global oil demand.
"Oil from Nigeria will continue to contribute towards the global energy mix with gas playing a more prominent role, possibly rivalling that of oil in the next decade,'' Daukoru said.
Daukoru, who is also OPEC president, said world oil demand in 2005 averaged 83.1 million barrels per day and would reach 84.5 million barrels per day before the end of this year.
According to him, demand for OPEC crude is expected to average 30 million barrels per day and the organisation is positioned to cope with the energy needs of the growing global economy.
He charged participants of the SPE conference to evolve far-reaching measures that would assist in formulating government policies as the oil and gas sector.
The SPE was established 30 years ago and has more than 60,000 members.