As concerns mount over the lack of domestic crude oil to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and other indigenous refiners, the Independent Petroleum Producers Group has called on President Bola Tinubu to consider declaring a state of emergency on crude oil production in Nigeria following the lingering crisis associated with this.IPPG is an association of Nigerian indigenous upstream exploration production companies that engages the government and other industry stakeholders on issues affecting the sector. It has 28 members including Oando Plc, Aiteo, Seplat, Energia, Eroton, First E&P, Frontier Oil, Green Energy, among others.The oil producers also expressed fears that the 2024 budget might be implemented partially due to the low production of crude in Nigeria lately.This came as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited announced that it had declared war on the challenges confronting oil production across the country, adding that it was currently engaging its partners including International Oil Companies.However, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, charged the oil producers to increase their investments in the upstream arm of the business, as this would also help to grow oil output.They all spoke at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Tuesday.Nigeria’s oil production has been dropping since this year, falling from over 1.4 million barrels per day (excluding condensates) in January to about 1.2mbpd in April.Oil producers believe that Nigeria should be producing about 2mbpd in order to meet the demand of local refineries as well as export.Dangote refinery as well as operators of modular refineries have continued to raise concern over the poor crude oil supply from IOCs and NNPC. However, industry experts say most of the crude volumes by the IOCs and NNPC have been contracted out to dealers already, amid the low production in-country.Presenting the industry keynote address at the conference, the Chairman, IPPG, Abdulrazaq Isa, pointed out that the industry was in dire need of extraordinary focus to mitigate the genuine concerns on its long-term sustainability.He stressed that “as a matter of national importance, Nigeria must act fast and hasten the pace of recovery across the entire industry, even if it means Mr President declaring a state of emergency in the oil and gas sector! We must be seen to do everything possible to unleash the industry.“Unlocking this incremental production is achievable only through collaboration and commitment between the industry regulators (NUPRC and NMDPRA) and industry operators (NNPC, OPTS and IPPG) and this must be done for the sake of our country.”Isa said despite Nigeria’s world class hydrocarbon resource base, with over 37 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and 207 tcf (trillion cubic feet) and 600 tcf of proven and contingent gas reserves respectively, the country finds itself in a situation where its daily production has significantly dropped and lies at about 1.3 million barrels of oil and 8.5 bcf (billion cubic feet) of gas today.“This is way below our capacity as a nation and by all globally acceptable standards, this reserves to production ratio is extremely low and a clear indicator that the industry is in a dire situation. In addition, we now run the risk of partial implementation of our national budget considering an estimated deficit of 400,000bpd from the forecasted 1.78 million bpd.“This trend in production portends another frightening dimension when we consider that in the not-too-distant future our overall installed domestic refining capacity, currently closing in on about 1.2 million barrels per day, may soon outstrip our current crude oil production level with the risk of Nigeria finding itself in a position where it is unable to meet its domestic refinery crude demand or even become a net importer of crude oil, God forbid!,” he stated.The oil producers chairman noted that it was against this scary backdrop that the IPPG was calling for urgent measures to be undertaken by all relevant stakeholders to immediately arrest this dwindling production level and under-investment by focusing on some priority areas.Outlining the priority areas, he said, “The immediate conclusion of all pending IOC divestment transactions: IPPG strongly advocates that our member companies – Seplat, the Renaissance Consortium and Oando – have the proven track record to successfully take over and manage these onshore and shallow water assets to realise incremental production in the region of 100,000 – 200,000 barrels of oil and over 1.5bcf of gas per day within 24 month