Nigeria produced a total of 236,229,281 barrels of crude oil in the first half of 2024 amid supply gap issues to Dangote Refinery and other domestic refineries.
This is according to the latest data posted by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
A breakdown of the figure showed that in January 44.2 million barrels of crude were produced, while the country pumped 38.3 million barrels of oil in February.
Also, 38.1 million barrels were produced in March, and the monthly production for April was 38.4 million.
In May, 38.8 million barrels were pumped and 38.3 million barrels were achieved in June.
The total barrels of crude oil produced in the first half of 2024 is 16.73 million lower when compared with the same period in 2023, the country’s total oil output from January to June was 219.5 million barrels,
In further analysis, NUPRC data showed that the country produced an average of 1.43 million barrels of crude oil per day in the first month of the year, being the highest average daily crude production within the six months.
In February, the daily oil production dropped to 1.32mbpd and dropped further to 1.23mbpd in March.
Meanwhile, daily production appreciated marginally to 1.28mbpd in April.
However, the figure fell again to 1.25mbpd in May, at a time the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, said the country’s daily oil production was nearing 1.7 million barrels.
The month of June saw the production increasing marginally to 1.28mbpd.
The fluctuations showed the dwindling nature of Nigeria’s crude production amid the challenges of oil theft and vandalism.
Recall that Kyari had recently lamented the carnage of crude oil theft and its impact on the Country’s revenue.
“No one will put money into oil production when he knows the production will not get to the market.
“In the last two years, we removed over 5,800 illegal connections from our pipelines. We took down over 6,000 illegal refineries—cooking pots or whatever they were. You simply cannot get people to put money until you solve that problem,” Kyari stated.
The development comes amid the continued crude supply challenge issue raised by Dangote Refinery.
Devakumar Edwin, the Vice President of Dangote Industries Limited had lamented on two occasions that International Oil Companies were frustrating Dangote refinery commencement on full scale by selling crude oil at a higher price above the global market price.
Although, as a solution, the NUPRC recently asked oil refiners in the country to provide monthly price quotes on crude supply.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority recently said Nigerians should be weary of Dangote refinery Petroleum products.