The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu on Thursday said President Muhammadu Buhari will meet with major stakeholders from the Niger Delta region next week Tuesday.

Kachikwu said this in his welcome address at the public presentation of a roadmap for the development of the nation’s oil and gas industry at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The minister said the meeting will hold at the Presidential Villa and was part of efforts to end the unrest in the region.

According to him, stakeholders expected at the meeting include ministers from the region, traditional rulers as well as security chiefs.

The minister added, “On Tuesday, the President will be meeting with the Niger Delta stakeholders of the oil-producing areas. It is important that we continue to sustain the institutional engagement and negotiations that are key to do this work.

“Our target is to have an incident reduction by 90 per cent by 2018 and to target zero militancy and shutdown by middle of 2017.

“Whatever shutdown experienced by the middle of next year, we expect it to be production slippages and not militancy issues. We must resolve current militancy problems and bring back production to 2.2 million barrels per day. We are currently at 1.8 million.

“We will like to begin the year once Exxon Mobil brings back its production this week with 2.2 million barrels per day. But the reality is that 2.2 million barrels does not represent the capacity of this nation.

“We have the capacity to increase to three million barrels per day, the problem has been funding. We are working with the oil sector players to find solutions to our cash call problems.”

Azeez