The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Bashir Ojulari, has said the company is on track with its plans to increase Nigeria’s crude oil production to 1.8 million barrels per day before the end of the year.

Ojulari stated this in an interview with State House correspondents on Sunday night after meeting with President Bola Tinubu at his private residence in Lagos, where he briefed the President on the company’s performance, investment drive, and progress toward achieving the administration’s production targets.

He said the NNPCL had made significant progress in oil and gas output, recording about 1.68 million barrels per day in September, the highest in five years, and over seven billion cubic feet of gas production daily, also the highest in recent times.

“Mr President gave us a very clear mandate to grow production to at least two million barrels per day by 2027 and up to three million barrels per day by 2030, while also increasing gas output.

“With the turnaround maintenance we concluded in August and September, we expect output to reach at least 1.8 million barrels per day by year-end, all things being equal,” he said.

Speaking on the recent industrial dispute between the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Ojulari said the strike led to the deferment of over 200,000 barrels of daily production and affected about 1,200 megawatts of power generation.

“It was quite unfortunate that the Dangote and PENGASSAN issue led to a strike. Whenever critical staff managing key facilities are unavailable, production is affected. In this particular case, we lost significant production of almost 200,000 barrels per day, while about 1,200 megawatts of power generation was also affected,” he said.