Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
After months of stalling in its crude oil production projection, Nigeria appears to be steadily on its way to meeting its Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota, hitting 1.235 million barrels per day in December.
However, the figure differed markedly from the estimate of 1.59 million bpd announced by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) earlier.
But when condensates which are outside OPEC calculation are added, the figure released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in its latest crude oil and condensate production data for December 2022, rocketed to 1.413 million bpd during the month under review.
Although still significantly lower than the about 1.8 million bpd OPEC allocation, the data obtained by THISDAY showed that crude oil production increased from the 1.18 million bpd in November.
December’s output woulf be the highest production level since March 2022, when the country’s production averaged 1.237 million bpd, while the January production figure was 1.39 million bpd, emerging the highest drilling done throughout the entire year.
Nigeria has been unable to meet its OPEC production quota for over a year, thereby hobbling the country’s main source of foreign exchange and putting immense pressure on the local currency, the naira, against the American dollar.
In February, March, April, and May 2022 respectively, oil production fell steadily to 1.25 million bpd, 1.24 million bpd, 1.22 million bpd, and 1.02 million bpd, while in June it rose marginally to 1.15 million bpd, before falling to 1.08 million bpd in July.
In August, the oil sector hit a deadly blow on the Nigerian economy, slumping to 972,394 bpd, and further falling to 937,766 bpd in September, before rising to 1.014 million bpd in October.
The Nigerian government has recently taken a rash of decisions to tackle the embarrassing oil theft situation in the Niger Delta, hiring local security groups as pipelines surveillance contractors.
Among those handed the security contracts was a firm belonging to a former Niger Delta warlord, Mr Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo.
In addition, the NNPC announced that it can now monitor Nigeria’s oil infrastructure in real time with its new automated platform and has inaugurated a whistle-blowers scheme which rewards persons who report the activities of suspected oil thieves to the national oil company.
Last week President Muhammadu Buhari directed the troops fighting the menace in the Niger Delta to halt the massive leakages by May 29.
