Nigerian Tribune
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said Nigeria’s oil output increased to 1.18 million barrels per day in August 2023.
It said Nigeria fell behind Libya on the list of Africa’s largest crude oil producers despite pushing up its production by 100,000 barrels to retain the second largest oil producer.
This, it disclosed in its monthly oil market report released on Tuesday.
According to the report, Libya increased its crude oil level from 1.17 million bpd to 1.92 million bpd while also noting that three others reported a decline in their crude oil output in the month being reviewed.
Apart from Libya and Nigeria, other top five list producers are Angola, Algeria, and Congo — retaining the third, fourth, and fifth positions, respectively.
The three countries that reported a decline in their crude oil output in August, were Angola, Algeria and Congo.
Angola produced 1.12 million bpd, recording a decrease in its output when compared with July’s production figure of 1.14 million bdp.
Similarly, Algeria’s output level fell to 939,000 bpd, in contrast with the previous month’s 955,000 barrels while Congo recorded the same with 272,000 bdp against July’s 282,000 barrels.
The Nigerian Tribune had earlier reported how Nigeria increased its revenue by N189bn on the instance of the increase in its oil output.
Latest data from the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), showed that the oil output rose to 37 million in August 2023 stating an increase of $246 million.
Using the average foreign exchange of N770/$ for August, this implies that multiplying the rate by $246 million would amount to N189 billion in Nigeria’s local currency.
Within the last 8 months, Nigeria’s highest crude production per day and total output were achieved in February and March with 1.3 million bpd and 39.3 million barrels respectively.
Nigeria’s daily oil production has been on steady increase since September 2022 until March 2023 when it dropped to 1.3 million bpd and has steadily continued to decline up till August 2023.
The Federal Government (FG) on several instances blamed the drop in oil production on crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism while at the same time attributed improvements to its sustained war against the menace.