The Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNPC) has announced that the country is currently planning new oil and gas policies aimed at attracting more private investors and boost crude production by 500,000 barrels a day by 2020.

A week ago, the Senate approved parts of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which has been in works in the parliament for a decade and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, plans to get much of the work completed by the end of this year.

The petroleum ministry have presented two papers for oil and gas policies which includes restructuring of NNPC, setting up an industry regulator, inviting more investors and boosting refining capacity to end expensive imports.

“The philosophy of the action plan for the Petroleum Policy is for the government to put the legislative and commercial framework in place and then let the market develop by itself,” it said.

The paper added that by 2017, Nigeria wants to be able to offer the needed fund for investments in order to allow production to increase by 500,000 bpd by 2020.

Last week, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Kachikwu, said oil output was 2.1 million bpd but militants have since then attacked several pipelines as part of a fight for a greater share of oil revenues in the Niger Delta oil hub, Reuters reports.

Anita Fatunji