Nigeria exceeded its 1.5 million barrels per day crude oil production quota for the third consecutive month in July, despite a four per cent month-on-month decline in output caused by operational challenges at two major oil fields.
Latest production figures from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) showed that the country produced an average of 1.505 million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude oil in July, slightly above its Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota.
The country also produced 0.17 mbpd of condensate, bringing total crude oil and condensate production to 1.67 mbpd during the month.
The figure, however, represents a decline from the 1.735mbpd combined crude oil and condensate output recorded in June.
According to the NUPRC data, daily combined production peaked at 1.78mbpd in July, while the lowest output recorded during the month was 1.57mbpd.
The commission attributed the decline largely to operational difficulties at the Erha and Akpo fields, which affected national production during the period.
Despite the disruptions, most other producing assets maintained relatively stable operations, helping to keep the country’s crude output above its OPEC quota.
July’s performance extends Nigeria’s recent run of exceeding its OPEC crude production allocation.
In June, the country produced 1.56 mbpd of crude oil and 0.18 mbpd of condensate, for a combined average of 1,735,398 barrels per day.
The June crude output represented 104 per cent of Nigeria’s 1.5mbpd OPEC quota and was the country’s highest monthly crude production since April 2020 — a 74-month high.
The June performance also marked the fourth consecutive month of production growth at the time, with the NUPRC reporting that stable operations across most producing assets and the absence of major pipeline outages helped drive the increase.
The production improvement followed a similar performance in May, when Nigeria averaged 1.53mbpd of crude and 0.17mbpd of condensate, taking combined output to about 1.70mbpd. The crude figure represented 102 per cent of the country’s OPEC quota.
The July figures show that Nigeria is gradually recovering from years of weak crude production, but output remains below the Federal Government’s long-standing ambition of raising production towards two million barrels per day.
The NUPRC had said in its June report that the country’s peak combined production of 1.89mbpd demonstrated the potential to approach the 2mbpd mark if production constraints were addressed.
Industry observers have continued to identify ageing infrastructure, operational disruptions, crude theft and underinvestment as factors that have historically constrained Nigeria’s oil production.
The Federal Government has also sought to increase investment in the upstream sector and remove regulatory bottlenecks to encourage operators to expand production.
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