The Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), says the country’s crude oil production has dropped below one million barrels per day.
This was disclosed on Wednesday in NUPRC’s latest crude oil and condensate production data for the month of April 2023.
According to the data, oil production fell to 998,602 barrels per day (bpd), a 21.26 per cent decline compared to March production—1,268,202 bpd.
This new production level is the lowest in seven months.
The trend in the report shows that oil production decreased from 1.517 million bpd in March 2023 to 1.245 million bpd in April 2023, with the addition of condensate.
In oil and gas, condensate simply means a mixture of light liquid hydrocarbons, similar to a light (high API) crude oil—usually separated from a natural gas stream at the point of production (field separation) when the temperature and pressure of the gas are dropped to atmospheric conditions.
NUPRC chief executive, Gbenga Komolafe, who was represented by Kelechi Ofoegbu, said oil production is currently about one million bpd below “its technically allowable capacity”.
Komolafe said the low oil production was caused by a number of issues, including the energy transition’s impact on hydrocarbon funding, a lack of investments, and insecurity.
“While the commission is prioritising efforts towards increasing oil and gas production and ensuring maximum federation revenue through the optimisation of oil and gas value chain, the efforts have been constrained by a myriad of challenges,” he said.
“These challenges range from insecurity, low investment, and de-prioritisation of funding of hydrocarbon development arising from the energy transition.
“Currently, Nigeria has the technical allowable capacity to produce about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. However, arising from the highlighted challenges, our current production hovers around 1.5 million barrels of oil and condensate per day.”
