Niger Delta crisis will be resolved by 2017 – Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, has disclosed that Nigeria was at 2.1 million barrels of oil production per day, before the renewed hostilities by militants, but assured that the formula for peace in the Niger Delta region of the country would be found by next year.

Kachikwu, who spoke to Bloomberg on the “turmoil” in the region, asserted that: “Well, I won’t call it turmoil any more, I would call it a bit of disruption.

According to him, “We’ve passed the turmoil stage, we have moved from 1.4 million barrels a day to 1.9.We were at 2.1 before we had the last incident.

“It is work in progress; we are putting every energy we can. President Muhammadu Buhari is very focused on trying to find solutions to these problems, and we are working hard on it. We are seeing solutions come up, we are seeing acceptance to what we are doing.”

He went on to express optimism that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, deal will become a reality to push oil prices to $50 per barrel, and above.

The Minister, who is currently at the Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, Producer-Consumer conference in Tokyo, Japan, and presided over OPEC’s 168th ordinary meeting in Vienna, also stated that a failure to reach a deal will crunch prices below $45 a barrel.