Fresh data from the Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has shown Nigeria’s monthly oil production has increased by 11 percent to 38.141 million barrels of Crude Oil in the month of October, a development expected to bring relief for Nigeria’s cash-strapped federal, state and local governments in the coming months.
The bulk of the revenue shared at the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting by the federal, state and local governments are dollar earnings from oil exports and are converted to naira before being shared.
Findings by Dataphyte showed in the month of October Nigeria’s QUA IBOE Oil terminal accounted for the largest amount of Crude Oil produced in October with 5.040 million barrels. ESCRAVOS oil terminal produced 4.532 million barrels.
The total production is a fall from the total 51.976 million barrels produced in January, this year. It is however an 11percent increase from the 34.116 million barrels produced in September.
The details show that the daily crude oil production of the country stood at 1.23 million barrels, a fall from the 1.676 million barrels produced in January and an increase from the 1.137 million barrels produced in September.
A review shows that Nigeria’s Crude Oil production has been experiencing inconsistencies throughout the year. In some parts of the year, the production experienced an increase while in other parts the production dropped.
Nigeria’s inconsistent production has been said to be connected to recurring issues of Crude Oil theft and poor facilities; this is despite a N147 billion expenditure on Pipeline security between 2019 and first six months of 2022.
A Dataphyte report had earlier noted that Nigeria lost 272 million barrels of Crude Oil to theft in Five years, between 2016 to 2020. Nigeria has also failed to meet its OPEC quota due to its inconsistencies in production.
The Nigerian President has also expressed willingness to tackle the menace of Crude Oil theft, although the menace has continued despite these expressions of commitment overtime.
Nigeria has reportedly lost $42 billion to Crude theft and refined products losses between 2009 and 2018.