Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped in November, data from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has shown.

Oil production from the 13 members of the organisation averaged 27.84 million barrels per day (mb/d) in November 2023, lower by 57 thousand barrels per day (tb/d), month-on-month, OPEC said in its Monthly Oil Market Report released Wednesday.

The report also noted that crude oil output increased mainly in Venezuela, Libya and Kuwait, while production in Iraq, Angola and Nigeria decreased.

Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1.37 million barrels per day in November, from 1.38 million bpd in October 2023, an OPEC survey, which cites secondary data sources, said.

However, according to the oil cartel’s direct communication data, Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1.25 million barrels per day from 1.35 million in October 2023.

OPEC indicated it gets its crude oil production figures mainly from two sources, either as direct communication by member countries or by information released by secondary energy intelligence platforms.

The recent drop in the country’s crude production comes at a time when the country is faced with a heavily disrupted crude sector plagued by oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

In November, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) said oil thieves vandalised over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines connecting different parts of the country.

Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd, Mele Kyari, who disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) said the continuous vandalisation of the pipelines was causing a huge loss to NNPC Ltd while describing the situation as a ‘national calamity’.

“Over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines in the country are not working as a result of pipeline vandalism.

“Ten million litres of oil was lost from the volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time. The company has been unable to pump oil from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years and cannot connect to Ore.

“There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which to us in NNPC Ltd, is substantially a national calamity,” he said.

PT