Nigeria overtakes Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer

Nigeria recorded the highest crude oil production rate in Africa last month, according to the latest monthly oil market report by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The report which was published on Tuesday, January 17, showed that Nigeria produced 1,235 million barrels per day, higher than the 1,186 million barrels per day it produced in November 2022.

Based on the data, Angola took second place at 1,088 million barrels per day while Algeria took third place with 1,099 million barrels per day.

“According to secondary sources, total OPEC-13 crude oil production averaged 28.97 mb/d in December 2022, higher by 91 tb/d m-o-m. Crude oil output increased mainly in Nigeria, Angola, Libya and Venezuela, while production in Kuwait, Congo and Algeria declined,” part of the report said.

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The year 2022 was challenging for the Nigerian oil and gas sector. Crude oil theft intensified around the second quarter to the fourth quarter of the year and this impacted crude oil production output.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company said that on average, the country lost up to 700,000 barrels per day of oil to crude oil thieves.

Nigerians also experienced fuel scarcity on multidimensional levels, and the issue of fuel subsidy has been a hot topic for a while with many Nigerians resolute on the issue of fuel subsidy removal.

Some stakeholders have said fuel subsidy removal must come after increased security measures have been deployed to monitor the country’s crude oil production processes and the government has refurbished all refineries to ensure 100% working capacity.

The Buhari administration has pegged the 2023 budget to a benchmark crude oil production rate of 1.69 mb/d for the year 2023.

However, experts at KPMG recently said that to meet up with this benchmark, all stakeholders must effectively activate more hydrocarbon investments in the country and tackle crude oil theft and ensure perpetrators are prevented from engaging in such activities to shore up production rates.