Nigeria loses position as Africa’s biggest oil producer as production drops to 1.23m bpd in March, says OPEC

Nigeria’s daily crude oil production maintains steady decline in 2024 as it dropped to 1.23 million barrels per day in March 2024 costing the country its position as the number one producer in Africa, latest data from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has shown.

This was contained in the cartel’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) released on Thursday.

This is a huge shortfall from the 2024 budget oil production benchmark of 1.78 mbpd. The figure is also a far-cry from the projection of 2.6mbpd by 2026 made by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

Nigeria has been experiencing resuced crude oil production in 2024 due to a myriad of challenges ranging from oil theft, pipeline vandalism and lack of investment in the oil sector.

The latest figure indicates that Nigeria’s output has steadily reduced since the start of the year, from 1.42 million bpd recorded in January. The figure dropped further to 1.32 million bpd in February before the latest decline to 1.23mpd.

As a result of the decline, Nigeria also lost its position as the biggest oil producer in Africa to Libya (which produced 1.24 million bpd in the month under review).

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Algeria was the third-largest oil producer with 907,000 bpd in the month examined, the group said.

The oil alliance said the production data was based on direct communication with Nigerian authorities.

OPEC receives data on crude oil production from two sources: direct communication which is from members of the group; as well as secondary communication, such as energy intelligence platforms.

Meanwhile, OPEC’s secondary sources put Nigeria’s crude production at 1.398 million bpd, a 5.28 percent fall from the 1.476 million bpd reported by the oil alliance in February.

“According to secondary sources, total OPEC-12 crude oil production averaged 26.60 mb/d in March 2024, 3 tb/d higher, m-o-m” the statement reads.

“Crude oil output increased mainly in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Gabon and Kuwait, while production in Nigeria, Iraq and Venezuela decreased.”

By: Babajide Okeowo

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