Photo File: The Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Bayo Ojulari, has expressed optimism that Nigeria’s crude oil production will reach 1.8 million barrels per day before the end of 2025.

Ojulari made this known on Sunday after a courtesy visit to President Bola Tinubu in Lagos, where he briefed the President on the activities and progress of the national oil company since assuming office on April 2.

“With some of the turnaround maintenance that we have done in August and September, all of those are meant to come back this month,” Ojulari said.

“We are hoping that before the end of the year, we should be clocking at least 1.8 million barrels per day,” he added.

The NNPCL boss also spoke on the recent industrial dispute between the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Dangote Refinery, which led to a temporary halt in production activities across some critical facilities.

The standoff followed allegations by the union that the refinery sacked over 800 Nigerian workers and replaced them with foreign staff. On September 26, PENGASSAN instructed its members nationwide to embark on a strike, which lasted five days before being suspended after the Federal Government intervened.

Ojulari lamented the impact of the strike on national output, revealing that the country lost substantial crude oil and gas production during the brief shutdown.

“It was quite unfortunate that the Dangote and PENGASSAN issue led to the strike. As you know, whenever there is strike and critical staff manning critical facilities are not available, it is almost impossible,” he said.

“In this particular case, we actually lost over 200,000 barrels per day production that was deferred. We also had gas production that was deferred, and power generation was also impacted, about 1.2 megawatt of power was affected by that strike,” he explained.

The Federal Government, through the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, intervened on September 30, convening a meeting between the refinery management and the union. The dialogue led to the recall of the affected workers and the suspension of the strike.

Ojulari commended the intervention, describing it as a timely move to protect the economy from further losses.

“I am very pleased that the Federal Government, through the leadership of the Minister of Labour and full support of the National Security Adviser, was able to put together everyone into a dialogue and bring everybody to the table,” he said.

“We are all very hopeful that everyone will abide by the communique. Since we can return quite a number of the production to status quo, there are one or two areas we are still trying to catch up. But overall, we have gradually gone back to restore the lost production and deferment that we have.”