Data released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) revealed that Nigeria’s crude oil production surged to 159,158,191 barrels in the initial four months of 2024, showcasing a significant uptick compared to the same period in previous years.
In January, the country recorded a production of 44.2 million barrels, maintaining an average daily output of 1.42 million barrels per day (mbpd). February witnessed a slight decline with 38.3 million barrels produced at an average of 1.32 mbpd. March saw a further dip to 38.1 million barrels, marking a decrease in daily output to 1.23 mbpd. April’s production showed a marginal increase, reaching 38.4 million barrels, with daily production rising to 1.28 mbpd.
Comparatively, the total oil output for the same period in 2023 stood at 144.8 million barrels, underscoring a notable increase of 14.3 million barrels in 2024. However, the figures pale in comparison to the robust production of 215.2 million barrels recorded during the corresponding months in 2020.
Addressing concerns about security challenges affecting oil production, Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), highlighted the adverse effects of oil theft and vandalism on the nation’s economy.
Kyari emphasized the need to address security issues to attract investments and enhance oil production. He expressed optimism about the country’s potential to achieve a production level of 1.7 mbpd, provided security challenges are adequately addressed.
How do you increase oil production? Remove the security challenge we have in our onshore assets. As we all know, the security challenge is real. It is not just about theft; it is about the availability of the infrastructure to deliver the volume to the market.
“No one is going to put money into oil production when he knows the production will not get to the market. Within the last two years, we removed over 5,800 illegal connections from our pipelines. We took down over 6,800 illegal refineries—cooking pots or whatever they were. You simply cannot get people to put money until you solve that problem.
“The good news is, there is substantial work that is being done by the government and I’m not going to speak about it. But I know that this will come to pass. It is already subsiding. We are already seeing the results.”
According to the NNPC boss, the country is inching to 1.7mbpd.
“On April 17, 2020, our production, without doing anything, without drilling new wells, shot to 2.2mbpd. The difference was COVID-19. The thieves, the vandals, everybody went to sleep,” Kyari stated.
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