Between January and September of this year, Nigeria lost no less than 120 million barrels of crude oil resulting in a revenue crisis.
According to data on crude oil output acquired from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the amount of crude oil lost in production amounts to $12.6 billion (NUPRC).
The $12.6 billion loss from the oil production would have given a quarter of what is required to finance the budget, even though Nigeria had requested a N20.5 trillion ($47.3 billion) budget for 2023 with the possibility of severely relying on borrowing due to the country’s debt issue.
Nigeria’s production has been constrained this year by infrastructure problems, pipeline leaks, and oil theft, placing the nation constantly below its OPEC+ crude targets. Only slightly more than half of Nigeria’s monthly quota was produced in crude oil in September, according to the country’s own submission to the OPEC Secretariat, while the NUPRC reports that total liquids production was only 1.14 million barrels per day.
Despite these obstacles, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is optimistic that the nation’s oil output would improve in 2023, reaching 1.8 million barrels per day by the end of the year.
Nigeria may bring up the matter of modifying the baseline production figure that sets its quotas within the OPEC+ group once more if it is successful in raising its oil production.
In January, February, and March of 2021, the nation produced 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd), 1.76 million bpd, and 1.74 million bpd, respectively. In April, production volume decreased marginally to 1.68 million barrels per day (bpd), then decreased to 1.65 million bpd in May, 1.63 million bpd in June, and finally 1.5 million bpd in August and September.
In terms of daily average production compared to the same period in 2022, January was 1.67 million bpd, and February was 1.52 million. It decreased from 1.49 million bpd in March to 1.48 million bpd in April, then plummeted significantly to 1.27 million bpd in May and 1.40 million bpd in June. In July, it fell to 1.31 mbpd, and by August, it had deteriorated to 1.1 mbpd.
Between January and September of 2021, a total of 452,051,631 barrels of crude oil and condensate were produced.
A total of 331,825,054 barrels of crude oil, blended condensate, and unblended condensate were produced between January and September of 2022.
With this result, the total amount of lost over the previous nine months rose to 120,226,577 barrels.
The average price of a barrel of Brent between 2021 and 2022 is approximately $105 when it was trading for $95.5 per barrel yesterday. The loss of 120,226,577 barrels during the reviewed period equals $12,623,790,585.
