Nigeria’s daily average crude oil output rose to 1.4 million barrels in September, a clear increase from the 1.18 million barrels per day recorded in August.
Despite the rise, the country failed to meet the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota of 1.8 million barrels per day.
According to the oil production status released by the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), compared to August, the average daily production increased by 165,429 barrels.
The total output for the month was 40.4 million barrels from 17 oil terminals with the highest output coming from Bongo, Egina and Erha.
With this, Nigeria, again, failed to meet its OPEC quota. Within four months between August and November, the country was expected to produce 1.826 million bpd, 1.830 million bpd, 1.826 million bpd and 1.747 million bpd, respectively.
OPEC and its allies had, in June, agreed to cut global oil production by 1.393 million bpd starting January 2024, reducing Nigeria’s oil production quota by 20.7 percent.
But, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, during an interview with Bloomberg in July said Nigeria’s crude oil production would be renegotiated by November.
According to him, increased output is expected by October, adding that another increase will be requested by the Nigerian government in November at the meeting of OPEC+, which makes up members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its non-OPEC partner, Russia.
Kyari had said, “OPEC understands that it is not that Nigeria does not have what it takes to produce more crude, but the challenge has been in terms of security and everything we are doing to combat insecurity in the Niger Delta is working.
“OPEC has now given us (Nigeria) a target to increase production between now and October and that figure is going to be worked with. I think it is very practical to get to between 1.5/1.6 by October.”
The Federal Government, on several instances, blamed the drop in oil production to crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism while at the same time attributed improvements to its sustained war against the menace.
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