Crude oil production drops to 1.3m bpd in July 2023

Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1,294,162 barrels per day in July 2023. This is according tofigures from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).  The figure showed that in the highlighted month, Nigeria produced 1,081,396 barrels of crude oil per day, meanwhile, it produced 38,258 barrels per day of blended condensate and 174,509 barrels per day of unblended condensates. All these made up a total of 1,294,162 barrels per day for the month. Since the start of 2023, this is the second time that Nigeria’s crude production rate dipped below 1.4 m/bpd, the first time was in April 2023, when the country produced 1,245,028 barrels. At other times, the country’s crude production numbers ranged between 1.4 and 1.5 m/bpd.  

Recall that in June 2023, the country recorded 1,480,078 barrels per day, inclusive of condensates. The crude oil production shortfall experienced in July was largely due to the outage in the Forcados terminal in early July after sheen was found at the facility which led to a suspension of activities.   According to the NUPRC data, the production shortfall experienced at the Forcados terminal, a significant hub in Nigeria’s oil infrastructure, led to a notable decrease in crude output. The Forcados terminal yielded a total of 3,286,735 barrels in July 2023. This figure contrasts with the more robust production of 7,898,226 barrels registered in the preceding month of June 2023. It is important to highlight that aside from the Forcados terminal, some major terminals reduced production numbers as well.

The NUPRC data stated that for July 2023, the Bonny terminal displayed a production of 2,606,500 barrels. This is lower than the output of 3,214,900 barrels reported in June 2023.  Similarly, the Brass terminal reported a production of 987,114 barrels, showing a decline from the 1,136,446 barrels seen in June 2023. Meanwhile, the Odudu (Amenam blend) terminal, recorded production for July 2023 stood at 2,934,411 barrels, which signifies a decrease from the 3,109,894 barrels recorded in June 2023. In contrast, the Qua Iboe terminal achieved higher production numbers in July, totalling 4,123,574 barrels compared to the 3,788,731 barrels produced in June 2023. Also, the Escravos oil terminal managed to boost crude production in July, yielding a total of 4,866,131 barrels. This surpasses the 4,475,298 barrels recorded in June 2023. Nigeria is still facing major threats from crude oil theft. Data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited shows that in July 2023, the country recorded 240 incidents of crude oil theft between July 15 and July 21, 2023.  Meanwhile, there were 139 crude oil theft incidents between July 22 and July 28.