The Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to declare a state of emergency on crude oil production in the country after the lingering crises in the industry.

Recall that there were concerns over the lack of domestic crude oil to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and other indigenous refiners.

IPPG is an association of Nigerian indigenous upstream exploration production companies that engages the government and other industry stakeholders on issues affecting the sector.

Members of the association include; Oando Plc, Aiteo, Seplat, Energia, Eroton, First E&P, Frontier Oil, Green Energy, among others.

The association also stated that the 2024 budget might not be fully implemented because of the low production of crude in the country recently.

In response to this, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, encouraged oil producers to increase their investments in the upstream arm of the business, as this would also help to grow oil output.

The conversations were had at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Tuesday, July 2, 2024.

The country's oil production has reduced since the start of 2024, falling from over 1.4 million barrels per day (excluding condensates) in January to about 1.2mbpd in April.

Speaking at the conference, the Chairman, IPPG, Abdulrazaq Isa, stated: “As a matter of national importance, Nigeria must act fast and hasten the pace of recovery across the entire industry, even if it means Mr President declaring a state of emergency in the oil and gas sector! We must be seen to do everything possible to unleash the industry.

“Unlocking this incremental production is achievable only through collaboration and commitment between the industry regulators (NUPRC and NMDPRA) and industry operators (NNPC, OPTS and IPPG) and this must be done for the sake of our country.

“This is way below our capacity as a nation and by all globally acceptable standards, this reserves to production ratio is extremely low and a clear indicator that the industry is in a dire situation. In addition, we now run the risk of partial implementation of our national budget considering an estimated deficit of 400,000bpd from the forecasted 1.78 million bpd.

“This trend in production portends another frightening dimension when we consider that in the not-too-distant future our overall installed domestic refining capacity, currently closing in on about 1.2 million barrels per day, may soon outstrip our current crude oil production level with the risk of Nigeria finding itself in a position where it is unable to meet its domestic refinery crude demand or even become a net importer of crude oil, God forbid!.”

BEB