Nigeria produced 159,158,191 barrels of crude oil in the first four months of 2024, according to figures from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. According to NUPRC figures, 44.2 million barrels of oil were produced in January, with an average daily production rate of 1.42 million barrels.
In February, the country produced 38.3 million barrels of oil, at an average rate of 1.32 million barrels per day. Similarly, in March, 38.1 million barrels were produced, while the country’s daily output fell to 1.23 million barrels per day. According to our reporter, daily oil output increased marginally to 1.28 million barrels per day in April, with monthly production totaling 38.4 million barrels.
In the same time of 2023, the country’s total oil output from January to April was 144.8 million barrels, 14.3 million less than what was recorded in 2024.
However, during the first four months of 2020, the country produced 215.2 million barrels of crude oil, 56 million barrels more than what was obtained within the same period this year.
Recently, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, lamented the negative impacts of oil theft and vandalism on the nation’s economy, saying the act discouraged investments in the oil and gas sector.
Kyari disclosed that the country’s output inched towards 1.7mbpd as of May 18, expressing optimism about increased oil production going forward.
“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.
