Nigeria’s hope of escaping its financial woes is far from close, as once again, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has ranked the country among underperforming producers.
In its latest report published on Thursday, OPEC puts Nigeria’s January 2022 oil output at 1.399 million barrels per day (mb/d).
This latest output, excluding Condensate, showed that the nation recorded an under-production of about 302,000 barrels per day, compared to its 1.701 mb/d OPEC quota.
At the current $93 per barrel and official exchange rate of N416.67 to a US dollar, the data obtained from the OPEC February 2022 Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR, further showed that the nation loses about N11.7 billion daily and N330 billion monthly.
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The amount lost could have covered at least 73 per cent of Federal government personnel costs for the month of January 2022.
According to the 2022 budget, the federal government is expected to spend N4.87 trillion on its personnel which comes to about N406.3 billion monthly.
In fact, the amount lost in January alone, could provide about 500,000 jobs to unemployed Nigerian youths and cater for their two-year take-home pay at N30,000 minimum wage per person.
OPEC in its report listed the largest under producers, in terms of percentages as Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Nigeria.