BY Bunmi Aduloju
Renewed hopes for Nigeria as oil production rose above the 1 million mark for the first time since July 2022.
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) said this in its latest crude oil and condensate production data for October 2022.
After a two-month record decline, oil production averaged 1,014,485 barrels of oil per day in October.
According to the report, the production increase is more than 8.18 percent compared to September’s production at 937,766 million barrels a day.
Despite the increase, the production figure is lower than the 1.8 million bpd production quota set by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
With the addition of condensate, oil output rose to a total of 1.23 million bpd from 1.14 million in September, according to the report.
Condensate is a mixture of light liquid hydrocarbons, similar to a light (high API) crude oil — usually separated out of a natural gas stream at the point of production (field separation) when the temperature and pressure of the gas are dropped to atmospheric conditions.
In January, February, March, April, and May, the country’s crude oil production averaged 1.39 million bpd, 1.25 million bpd, 1.24 million bpd, 1.22 million bpd, and 1.02 million bpd, respectively.
Crude oil production averaged 1.16 million bpd in June, 1.08 million bpd in August and 972,394 bpd in August.
NUPRC had forecasted an exponential increase in Nigeria’s oil output, targeting to add about 500,000 barrels to the country’s oil production.
Gbenga Komolafe, NUPRC’s chief executive officer (CEO), said the volume would be achieved by getting about 40 to 50 percent of the shut-in deliverables.
“So, our projection is that we can hit over two million barrels and surpass our OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) quota,” he added.
In recent times, the government has reinforced the fight against the lingering oil theft and pipeline vandalism which has led to declining oil output and oil revenue.
In October, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) uncovered an illegal 4-kilometre (km) pipeline that had operated undetected in the last nine years.
The NNPC also awarded pipeline surveillance contracts to private companies, including the one owned by Tompolo, a former Niger Delta warlord.
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