Nigeria produced 1.48 million barrels per day of crude oil in June 2023, including 55,088 and 176,030 bpd of blended and unblended condensates, respectively, according to the National Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
This is 3.5% and 5.71% more oil than it produced in May 2023 and June 2022, when it produced 1.43 and 1.40 million barrels per day, respectively.
The country’s crude oil output, however, fell short of the 1.69 million barrels per day annual budget target for 2023.
Nigeria’s low oil output figures are largely attributable to oil theft, which has been actively combated by the government through greater pipeline surveillance.
The Forcados terminal was the key source of increase on a month-to-month basis as the terminal produced the total crude oil and condensate production to 7.90mb in June 2023 from 7.01mb in May 2023.
In June 2023, crude oil and condensate output at the Bonny, Brass, Qua Iboe, Escravos, and Odudu terminals was 3.21 Mb, 1.14 Mb, 3.79 Mb, 4.48 Mb, and 3.11 Mb, respectively, down from 3.73 Mb, 1.14 Mb, 4.10 Mb, 4.78 Mb, 3.29 Mb, and 1.13 Mb in May 2023.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Ministry of Petroleum, plans to dramatically expand total oil output to 1.7 million barrels per day by November 2023, which we regard as an ambitious target.
We predicted average oil production of 1.6 million barrels per day for 2023 because we anticipated a quicker recovery in oil production in 2023.
Our anticipation was based on the government’s crackdown on oil theft and the heightened pipeline surveillance.
Production numbers, however, have not increased as fast as expected.
We anticipate that average crude oil output (including condensates) will increase to 1.5 mbpd in H2 from 1.45 mbpd in H1, which suggests that average production will be 1.48 mbpd for 2023 as opposed to our previous prediction of 1.6 mbpd.