Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, has assured that the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company will scale up its production to 500, 000 barrels of crude oil per day in the next two years to meet domestic consumption.

Speaking at the facility tour of Gas Handling Facility in Ologbo, Benin on Wednesday, Kyari said NPDC was currently producing 260,000 barrels per day as against the 136,000 barrels per day it produced a year ago.

According to Kyari, this is a very magnificent level of growth in any upstream company. He added that the NNPC was working with NPDC to hit the set target.

He said, “With the current level of work, it is possible for the NPDC to hit 500,000 barrel per day in two years.

“Today, NPDC has the highest number of rigs running in this country. Five rigs are running at the same time adding value and delivering major projects which will ultimately contribute towards the production of the 500,000 per day target.”

“Also, we are producing about five billion Standard Cubic feet (scf) of gas into the entire domestic market with NLNG and NPDC contributing to that total,” he added.

Kyari assured that the Ologbo plant when completed in October would halt the importation of LPG as Nigeria was blessed with gas and other petroleum resources.

He said, “At that time, you will see at least 30 trucks turning out of this place every day into the domestic market. This will be unprecedented.

“At that point, gas will be delivered without interruption into the domestic market, while crude oil will also be supplied to the international market by our own company under our control.”

He added that the NPDC was a company owned 100 per cent by Nigeria and vowed to deliver it to be the number one upstream company in the country.