Sahara Group, the India-based energy and infrastructure conglomerate, plans to be producing 350,000 barrels of crude daily in Africa by 2030, local media reported, citing a senior company executive.
“This growth will be driven by a major upgrade of our exploration and production services, enhanced execution capacity, and the acquisition of seven brand-new rigs to accelerate and improve production efficiency,” the chief technical officer of Sahara Group’s energy business, Asharami Energy, said at an industry event in Cape Town.
In pursuit of its production goal, Sahara Group will buy seven drilling rigs, Leste Aihevba, the CTO of Asharami Energy, also said.
The company, per its website, is one of the largest independent exploration and production operators in Africa. It owns eight assets in “prolific basins across Africa” at various stages of development. It is also planning an expansion to its portfolio in sub-Saharan Africa. The production growth, however, will come from Nigeria alone, according to Aihevba.
Two of the seven rigs have already been deployed, the executive also said, one at a gas field in the West African energy producer, and another at an oil field.
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Earlier this year, the Nigerian government set a production hike target for crude oil to 2.5 million bpd, from a current production rate of less than 2 million barrels daily. One constraint on production growth until recently was the OPEC+ quota aimed at curbing overall production from the group. Now that OPEC+ is unwinding the output cuts, that constraint is gone but challenges remain, including oil theft and pipeline vandalism, which have plagued the country’s oil and gas industry for decades.
Sahara Group is not the only one interested in taking part in Nigeria’s production boost. Exxon earlier this year said it would commit $1.5 billion to deepwater offshore development in the country. TotalEnergies and Shell also have plans for higher production in Nigeria.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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