Peace Obi
Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company has revealed that its new investment plan would lead to increased oil production to about 250,000 per day.
The Chief Executive Officer of the energy conglomerate, Victor Okoronkwo made the disclosure at the just concluded Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) conference in Abuja. Stating that Aiteo plans to inject over $5bn investments in its operations to boost its crude oil production to 250,000 barrels per day also said the development would culminate into the increase of the country’s gas supply to 300 million standard cubic feet (SCF) per day.
According to the CEO, the massive investment was needed to grow the petroleum industry, which he said Aiteo is at the forefront of supporting the sector’s development.
He said, “Aiteo was one of the biggest single investment decision-makers when we invested over two billion dollars in acquiring the Oil Mining Lease, OML, 29 asset.
“At the moment, we do have our development plan, which has been submitted to our joint venture partners and because the government is exiting the cash call situation, we are negotiating an alternative finance package to be able to fund about 5billion dollars of investment.
Continuing the CEO said, “The investment would move production to 250,000 barrels per day. However, this will increase our gas supply to about 300 million standard cubic feet per day, which will be enough to power more than 1.2 gigawatts of electricity in Nigeria.
“On finances, it is going to be a cocktail of financing options depending on how we land with the alternative financing mechanism, we are working with our joint venture partners NNPC,” Okonkwo said.
Okonkwo who lamented on the economic impact of vandalism and crude oil theft from its facilities said that Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company has lost over $2 billion to oil theft in the Nembe creek trunk line that conveys crude both to the terminal and Shell.
According to him, Aiteo operates a key and strategic piece of oil and gas infrastructure in the Nembe creek trunk line, which he said is over 100 kilometres.
“And increasingly, there has been a lot of incursions on that pipeline leading to outages of production, sometimes shut down.
“This pipeline, not only does it deliver Aiteo crude to the terminal, it carries crude to Shell. If we look at the shutdown impact in financial terms as a result of this oil breakages and theft, it is closed to $2 billion dollars in the past four years.
“That is what we have lost not just as a company but as a nation. To this end, the royalties that ought to be accrued to the country is gone because of the activities of this vandals.
”This is why we are calling on the government to collaborate with us and find a lasting solution to this menace bedevilling the industry,” he said.
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