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Nigeria’s crude oil and condensate production hit a high of three years and four months in January, rising to 1.737 million barrels per day during the period, and a major boost for the country’s projected N54.9 trillion revenues in the 2025 budget.
Although it fell short of the country’s forecast daily production of 2.06 million bpd for the year 2025, it was a major improvement on Nigeria’s total volume of oil pumped, which fell to as low as 1.1 million bpd in the last quarter of 2022.
The country’s new production data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) showed that since April 2021, when the country produced 1.74 million bpd, the country has not achieved the current peak.
Since 2020, after the COVID 19 pandemic, the country has struggled to meet its oil production target, blaming massive oil theft, unbridled vandalism of oil assets in the Niger Delta and years of under-investment in the sector for the challenges.
Nigeria has oil benchmark prices of $75, $76.2, and $75.3 for the daily crude oil production of 2.06 million barrels, 2.10 million barrels, and 2.35 million barrels daily for the 2025-2027 fiscal years respectively.
According to the NUPRC data, production came mainly from Bonny (7.57 million barrels); Brass (1.050 million barrels); Qua Iboe (4.63 million barrels); Forcados (8.86 million barrels); Excravos (4.48 million barrels); Odudu (2.33 million barrels) and Tulja-Okwuibome (2.26 million barrels).
“Lowest and peak production in January were 1.66 million bpd and 1.79 million bpd respectively. The daily average production in January was 1.737 barrels per day, comprising both crude oil (1.538 bpd) and condensate (198,783 bpd). The average crude oil production was 103 per cent of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota (1.5 million bpd),” the NUPRC stated in its explanatory notes.
Also, OPEC has stated that Nigeria raised its crude oil production volume by 54,000 barrels per day in January. OPEC does not calculate condensates as part of production.
OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR), said Nigeria’s average daily crude oil output increased significantly to 1.539 million barrels per day last month, indicating that the country has now exceeded its quota by almost 40,000 bpd.
The oil cartel noted that data obtained from direct communication with Nigerian authorities showed that Nigeria recorded over 1.53 million bpd, although secondary sources reported that the country’s crude production declined to 1.49 million bpd in January from 1.52 million bpd in December.
Essentially, OPEC gets its data on crude oil production from two sources, namely: Direct communication from member countries and secondary communication, data usually produced by energy intelligence firms.
It further showed that Nigeria retained its position as the largest oil producer in Africa, surpassing Algeria, which produced 907,000 bpd in January, with Congo coming far behind with 251,000 barrels of oil per day during the period.
“According to secondary sources, total OPEC-12 crude oil production, total DoC crude oil production averaged 40.62 mb/d in January 2025, which is 118 tb/d lower, month-on-month,” it stated.
Despite several challenges, Nigeria has been actively working to increase its oil production through various initiatives for years. The NUPRC and the ministry of petroleum resources have expressed their aspirations to exceed 2 million bpd by the end of the year.
In October 2024, the federal government announced a target to further boost production to 2.3 million bpd by mid-2025, attributing the goal to successful efforts against oil theft.
Emmanuel Addeh
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