Nigeria May Earn Over $4.4bn From Crude Oil Sales In September

Africa’s biggest oil producer will likely pocket over $4.43bn in September as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd begins pumping 1.67 million barrels of crude oil into the market.

Nigeria, which is the continent’s top oil producer recorded an average daily oil production of 1.22 million barrels per day (mbpd) in the second quarter of 2023 according to official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Oil prodcution had worsened to a daily output less than a million barrel per day.

Low production which is driven by crude oil theft and vandalism has began to ease, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari said in the past week at the State House briefing.

President Bola Tinubu has “re-engineered the security approach. We’ve already seen very significant changes in our production environment,” Kyari said.

Official data announced by the NNPC GCEO revealed output of crude oil and condensates are back to 1.67 million barrels per day which means significant revenue for the government and foreign exchange intervention for the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“We are already seeing very significant changes in our production environment, and just checking the data for Wednesday, August 29, 2023, actual data for crude oil and condensate products is at 1.67 million barrels per day.

“This is substantial if you look at the situation where we were almost below a million barrels per day some months ago,” the NNPCL boss said.

Findings by THE WHISTLER showed Brass Rivers crude variant sells for $90.69 per barrel; Qua Iboe sells for $90.94 while the Bonny Light sells for $91.80 per barrel.

Meanwhile, Brent Crude sells for $88.55 per barrel. Crude condensates sells for $75.36 per barrel.

Going by the benchmark crude price, Brent, which sells for $88.55 per barrel, Nigeria is expected to generate about $147.8m daily from crude oil sales.

This would translate to at least $4.43bn in the 30 days of the month of September.

Pressure on government purse to defend subsidy has also eased with the removal of fuel subsidy which gulped N400bn monthly and would have surged to N1trn monthly.

Kyari had said, “May I also point out that the industry, which is clearly a major source of FX for the country, as long as you don’t produce and export, you will continue to rely on exports coming from the only source of foreign exchange and this will grow as long as production grows and the market remains stable.”