By Babatunde Safiriyu
Nigeria recorded the biggest decline in crude oil production among its African peers in the month of October, following production fall by 45,000 bpd to 1.354 million bpd from about 1.40 million bpd, the previous month, per OPEC’s secondary sources. This was more than 200,000 bpd below its cap of 1.6 million bpd.
As contained in the OPEC’s monthly oil market report released recently, the country recorded the steepest drop among the three African member-states; Nigeria, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea, with output decline in the month under review, and the second biggest after Iraq, among the four with reported declines in OPEC, based on direct communication.
Notably, the combined crude production in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea fell by 30,000 bpd in October from September.
Consequently, Nigeria lost the status of Africa’s top oil producer to Libya, with direct communication showing the country’s production dropped to about 1.23 million bpd in October from about 1.25 million bpd in the previous month, while Libya saw its production rise to 1.24 million bpd in October from 1.16 million bpd in September.
Nigeria had been struggling to reach its quota while frequent force majeure events have also contributed to the much lower production than allowed under the OPEC+ deal.Analysts have alsolamented the lack of investment in oil-producing facilities and recurring militant attacks on key pipelines.
This situation has seen it emerged with the biggest output drop in the organization in July, with a production drop from the 1.549 million bpd recorded in June to 1.508 mbd in July.
Unfortunately, it has not abated as Shell’s Nigerian unit declared force majuere on loadings of Bonny Light crude at the end of October, following the shutdown of the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) by the operator, Aiteo Exploration and Production Limited.
The report also shows that OPEC’s crude oil production rose by 217,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 27.453 million bpd in October, but still fell short of the cartel’s share of the 400,000-bpd total output hike of the OPEC+ group.
OPEC thus cut its world oil demand forecast for the last quarter of 2021 by 330,000 bpd as high energy prices curb the recovery from COVID-19, delaying the timeline for a return to pre-pandemic levels of oil use until later in 2022.
OPEC has in its fold; seven African oil-producing nations; Algeria, Angola, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya and Nigeria.
