By Adedapo Adesanya
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has revealed that Nigeria’s crude oil production averaged 1.451 million barrels per day in September 2021.
In its Oil Market Report for October 2021, the cartel said the figure showed an increment of 12.0 per cent or 156 million barrels per day when compared to the 1.296 million barrels per day produced averagely in the month of August 2021.
It also noted that Nigeria’s non-oil economic activities grew despite the lingering effects of the current COVID-19 wave.
The report said: “The Stanbic IBTC Bank Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) edged up to 52.3 in September from 52.2 in August, remarking the 15th consecutive monthly expansion.
“Yet labour market pressures continued to be a concern.
“Recently released National Bureau of Statistics data indicated that the unemployment rate increased to 33.30 per cent in fourth quarter 2020 from 27. 10 per cent in second quarter 2020.”
It said, however, both consumer and business confidence has increased, driven by the overall positive sentiments related to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and rising commodity prices.
Despite the recent rise in prices of crude oil, Nigeria has been grappling with technical issues has not been able to maximize the rising prices to buoy export proceeds significantly.
In the last quarter, daily production was reported at an average of 1.27 million barrels per day (ex-condensate), following the dip in output that commenced in the second quarter of 2021.
On the demand side, OPEC changed its estimate from the earlier anticipated 5.96 million barrels per day in August to 5.8 million barrels per day in September.
The organisation premised the downward revision on the consistently lower-than-expected actual demand performance so far in 2021.
On the supply side, it is expected that supply would reduce by 0.3 million barrels per day.
The reduced supply expectation is based on the force majeure in Canada, production outages in the US following Hurricane Ida, and the ongoing maintenance in the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan.
