The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it has saved $2 billion in the past year by renegotiating its upstream servicing contracts.  The renegotiation was part of strategies by the corporation to revive the fortunes of industry that drives the nation’s economy.

“For the upstream, cost reduction and efficiency are key features that we will pay attention to,” the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru, said in a statement issued by the corporation..

The company has also cut operating costs for oil production to $22 a barrel from $27 per barrel, Baru said.

Average daily production of oil and condensates has been about 1.88 million barrels since the beginning of the year, with the Forcados and Qua Iboe terminals running again after being taken down by attacks last year, he said.

That puts Nigeria on target to exceed its 2017 goal of producing an average of 2.2 million barrels of oil and condensate a day, Baru said.

Militant attacks crippled Nigeria’s oil production in 2016.

But since February, the government has sent senior officials including Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to hold talks with local communities in the oil heartlands of the Niger Delta, hoping to address their grievances.

That has brought a fragile truce to the region since the beginning of the year and allowed oil production to recover.

Dr. Baru noted that the Corporation had grown the production of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, NNPC’s flagship Upstream Company, from 15,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) to the current peak-operated volume of 210,000bopd in June 2017.

He stated that the ownership of Oil Mining Licence, OML13 had been restored to NPDC following a presidential intervention, with first oil from the well expected before the end of the year.

The GMD said the confidence of the NNPC JV partners to pursue new projects had been rekindled following the repayment agreements for JV cash call arrears that were negotiated and executed for outstanding up to end 2015 by all the IOC Partners of the Corporation’s Joint Venture Companies (JVCs).

In the gas sector, the GMD said gas supply to power plants and industries in the Country had been significantly increased.

Dr. Baru listed the accomplishments of the Corporation in the sector to include: Completion of the repairs of the vandalized 20” Escravos Lagos Pipeline System A (ELPS –A) in August 2016 which ramped up Chevron Escravos Gas plant supply from nil to 259MMscfd and the Completion of repairs of the vandalized Chevron offshore gas pipeline in February 2017 which equally peaked the company’s gas supply to 430MMscfd.