By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria has dropped from Africa’s largest crude oil producer to third as production plunged to 972,000 barrels per day in August 2022.
Nigeria lost the position to Angola and Libya, which increased their outputs in the period under review, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC disclosed this in its September 2022 report, confirming the figures released recently by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
It was reported last week that Nigeria’s crude oil production slumped below one million barrels per day in August 2022, the lowest ever in 32 years.
The report revealed that Angola was Africa’s highest crude oil producer for the month under review with an average production of 1.187 million barrels per day while Libya averaged also 1.123 million barrels per day for the month of August.
Nigeria’s crude in the September 2022 oil sector report released on Tuesday by OPEC stated that the drop in Nigeria’s oil production made Angola and Libya overtake Nigeria in oil output.
“According to secondary sources, total OPEC-13 crude oil production averaged 29.65 mb/d in August, higher by 618,000 month-on-month,” it stated.
The report added, “Crude oil output increased mainly in Libya and Saudi Arabia, while production in Nigeria declined.”
This further spells woe for Nigeria’s revenue as oil which accounts for 79.9 per cent of foreign exchange earnings will be affected.
Already, state officials had already raised an alarm that the country was losing around $700 million monthly due to oil theft.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited through Mr Bala Wunti, the Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPMS), said that Nigeria is currently losing 470,000 barrels per day of crude oil amounting to $700 million monthly due to oil theft.
“If you’re producing 30,000 barrels a day, every month, you get 1,940 barrels. So what it means is that you can take it to 270 every four days, calculate it in a month; you will have seven cargos on a million barrels, that’s seven million barrels.
“When you multiply seven million barrels by $100 that is $700 million lost per month, and about 150,000 barrels expected have differed; we are not producing due to security challenges,” he said.
