By Muhammed Gado, Abuja
The African big brother has fallen as the giant of the continent continues to sleep and then slump to a third place finish in the row of the continents biggest oil producers behind Angola and Libya.
According to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria’s oil production plunged to 972,000 barrels per day in August 2022 while Libya and Angola overtook the once biggest producer on the continent.
In its September 2022 report, the OPEC confirms the earlier reported figures by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC.
The figures released by the NUPRC indicated that the country’s oil production dropped from 1,083,899 bpd in July to 972,394 bpd in August.
Confirming this in its September 2022 oil sector report released on Tuesday, OPEC stated that the drop in Nigeria’s oil production made Angola and Libya to overtake Nigeria in oil output.
Angola, now the continents biggest producer produced an average production of 1.187mb/d while Libya’s oil production peaked at 1.123mb/d for the month of August.
“According to secondary sources, total OPEC-13 crude oil production averaged 29.65 mb/d in August, higher by 618,000 month-on-month. Crude oil output increased mainly in Libya and Saudi Arabia, while production in Nigeria declined,” the report stated.
