(Ecofin Agency) - The Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Kachikwu, has revealed that the Federal Government is targeting 3million bopd within the next five years.

Speaking at the ongoing 2017 Nigerian oil and gas conference in Abuja, the minister said in order to achieve this the oil industry would need to invest $10billion annually on infrastructure for the next five years.

“The government is not in a position to fund the over $35 billion infrastructural gap that is essential for the oil industry to work effectively, so we are left with little alternative but to bring in private investors, work out terms that would enable us to begin to massively address the infrastructure gap. Over the next four to five years, we need to find a way of bringing into this country an average of about $10 billion of investment every year in infrastructure,” he said.

According to him, the government is committed to the 2018/2019 template to halt fuel imports to safeguard the survival of the industry as well as ensure that the country’s three refineries are not made useless once the planned Dangote refinery comes online.

Nigeria’s oil output has witnessed a growth from the low level of 1.4 million bpd to over 2.1million bpd since the suspension of attacks on infrastructure by militants in the Niger Delta region.

Anita Fatunji