Oil production by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the flagship upstream subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has grown following the successful drilling and completion of wells in Oil Mining Lease (OML) assets operated by the company, Daily Trust reports.

Data obtained from the corporation showed that the recent drilling and completion of five horizontal wells in OML 26 and other completed projects in 2017 have led to an additional 700, 000 barrels of crude production by the company. NNPC’s operations report for October showed that production by the NPDC within the third quarter of 2017 spiked from 3.9 million barrels in July to 4.6 million barrels in September.

Turnaround operations on OML 40 jointly owned and operated by NPDC and on OML 65 contributed immensely to the rise, the data showed. NPDC Managing Director, Mr. Yusuf Matashi, disclosed recently that the successful turnaround of the OML 40 asset from 0 bpd to 12, 000 bpd underlined the company’s rising profile as the fifth largest oil producer in Nigeria.