Nigeria is now Africa’s top oil producer, surpassing Angola, whose output was at 1.1 mb/d, while Equatorial Guinea is now the continent’s lowest producer with 56,000 bpd.
According to Vanguard, Nigeria’s oil production, excluding condensate, climbed by 15.6% to 1.3 million barrels per day, in May 2023 from 1.1 mb/d reported in the previous month of April 2023.
This information was released by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries yesterday where the organization indicated that the figure was based on data it got from secondary sources in its June 2023 Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR.
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, also reported that the country’s oil output, which includes condensate, increased by 14.4% in May to average 1.43 mb/d during the month.
The production data include crude oil (1.18 million barrels), blended condensate (0.065 million barrels), and unblended condensate (0.18 million barrels). The report showed that the nation continues to fall far short of both the 1.69 million barrels per day benchmark for the 2023 Federal Government’s budget and the 1.8 million daily output quota set for it by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s earlier claimed that the nation is unaware of the precise amount of crude oil produced by the sector.
As there was no precise measurement system in the sector, Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said that the government can only estimate the amount of crude oil produced in the nation at the moment.
“NEITI has been frustrated over the years that we produce yet we have no idea how much precisely we are producing because our metering and infrastructure are based on estimates, and we have continued to shout that we needed an agency that will stand strong, an ally, shoulder to shoulder with NEITI, to push this argument beyond limits”.
From 2009 to 2020, according to NEITI reports, “this country lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil, and we only tracked eight companies that were willing to volunteer data,” the speaker said.
“619.7 million barrels were missing, either stolen, or were not found. equating to $46.16 billion, or N16.25 trillion if converted to Naira at the official currency rate.that Nigeria lost due to crude.”
However, according to the NUPRC Chief Executive, Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, the commission is addressing the issue by developing a new oil production measuring standard.
The Commission recently revealed that erroneous output volume measurement was responsible for 40% of the over $4 billion in crude oil reported to be stolen annually.
The new Petroleum Measurement Regulations, 2023, according to Engineer Komolafe, “will promote accelerated meter roll out in upstream petroleum operations, attract private investments in the provision of metering services and also provide regulation of the measurement of petroleum produced.”
