The Minister of State Petroleum (oil), Heineken Lokpobiri has said that the 2.06 million barrels per day oil projection in the 2025 budget is realisable.
The minister made the statement following the presentation of the N49.7tn budget by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the National Assembly.
The budget titled, “Budget of Restoration: Securing Peace, Rebuilding Prosperity,” is targeted at consolidating the administration’s reforms which experts say has induced hardship.
Tinubu said the 2025 budget targets a revenue of N34.82tn and N15.81tn for debt servicing.
The deficit will be covered with N9.22tn debt.
Although some analysts have argued that the budget is “unrealistic and ambitious”, Lokpobiri said it is realizable.
Tinubu said the revenue projection is based on the assumption that oil production would rise to 2.06 million barrels per day while the average crude oil price remains at $75 per barrel.
Lokpobiri said there are existing efforts to upscale production to 2mbpd. Current production stands at 1.8mbpd according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
The minister said, “What we can assure Nigerians is this budget will be realizable, this budget will be implemented.
“Let me speak on some of the assumptions. The budget is predicated on the oil production of 2.60m barrels of oil per day.
“We are already doing close to 2 mbpd, I can assure you that by the end of the year 2024, we will surpass what is projected here including condensates.”
Recall that in October 2024, the NUPRC launched a project to raise oil production by an additional one million barrels per day through its Project One Million Barrels Per Day Initiative.
At the time, oil production was over 1.6 mbpd. An additional 1 mbpd would sum oil production to 2.6 mbpd, surpassing the 2.06 mbpd 2025 budget projection.
The Commission’s Chief Executive, Engr Gbenga Komolafe, said at the launch that the move to raise oil production by extra 1 million barrels per day “is in line with the president’s mandate for the country to raise its oil output to support he country’s revenue target.”