Egina Oil Field Producing 140,000 Barrels Below Buhari’s 2019 Budget Estimate

Egina Oil Field Produces 60,000 Barrels Per Day, Targets 200,000 By March

According to Ahmadu Kida-Musa, deputy managing director (deepwater) at Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (Total), the Egina oilfield is currently producing 60,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

This may impact negatively on the 2019 budget, which had factored in 200,000 barrels from Egina in its revenue projections.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in his 2019 budget speech said he expects Egina to add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s production numbers, Naija News reports.

However, speaking during a presentation on the success recorded on the Deepwater project thus far, Kida-Musa said output will hit 200,000 bpd by March.

While presenting the 2019 budget, President Buhari had told the joint session of the national assembly that the executive had set oil production benchmark at 2.3 million barrels per day — as it was in 2018.

The president, however, acknowledged that Nigeria did not produce as much as the budgetary benchmark in 2018, but expressed optimism for 2019.

“In 2018, average oil production up to end of the third quarter was 1.95 mbpd, as against the estimated 2.3 mbpd for the entire year,” Buhari had said.

Despite producing just 1.95 million barrels per day for the better part of 2018, the president said Egina will come on stream and add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s production capacity.

“With regard to the oil and gas sector, crude oil production continues to increase steadily towards budgetary targets and will receive a further boost when the 200,000 barrels per day Egina oil field starts operations,” he added.