Nigeria

Nigerian crude and condensate production picked up to 1.42 million barrels per day in the first two months of 2023 after it plunged to 1.23 million b/d in 2022, down from 1.4 million b/d in 2021. This is substantially down from the 1.75 million b/d in 2020 and well below the 2.4 million b/d recorded in 2006. Key factors keeping output down in 2022 include technical issues, maintenance, sabotage and theft. Nigeria's current production is putting its stance as Africa's biggest oil producer at risk of being ousted by other African countries like Angola and Libya, but the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) forecasts that oil production might hit 2.2 million b/d in 2023. Production in the first two months of 2023 with volumes picking up from Brass and Bonny terminals, following sabotage and force majeure lifts and reliefs, looks promising, but more enhancements and efforts are necessary as Nigeria is constantly plagued by theft from crude oil pipelines which can be seasonal and related to local disputes. These come unpredictable and will always prevent Nigeria from maximizing production capacity utilization. Nigeria remained a consistent under-producer in the first ten months of 2022 with exacerbating under performance. Struggling to bring back barrels, Nigeria reached a record of a very high compliance rate to the opec cut in October 2022 when production dropped to a more than a decade low of 935,000 b/d in effect of the force majeure on Bonny Light terminal, theft uncovered in Forcados pipelines and other maintenance and technical difficulties. Following the new Opec-plus deal to cut production by 2 million barrels starting November 2022 and through the end of 2023, Nigeria's compliance dwindled to an average of 845%. Compliance rates are slightly lower if the Agbami stream is considered a crude instead of a condensate, a classification that Opec and Nigeria disagree on.