The data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria in its quarterly economic reports has shown that Nigeria’s crude oil production fell in the second quarter of 2024.
The data shows that the crude oil production in the country fell by 4.51% to 1.27 million barrels per day in 2024.
This fall is in comparison to the 1.33million barrels per day recorded in the preceding quarter.
The development was blamed on crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta region.
It was also noted that crude oil production fell short of the OPEC quota of 1.58 million barrels per day, meaning it fell by 308,000 barrels per day in the second quarter of 2024.
Nigeria has been struggling with maintaining constant production enough to meet OPEC quota or maximise its potentials in terms of crude oil production.
The Bureau Newspaper earlier reported that the NNPCL noted that it spent N62 billion on pipeline maintenance.
The monies were said to have been spent between 2022 and 2023, per details on the company’s financial statements.
The sum of N45.8billion was spent in 2022 and another N16.2billion in 2023 for pipeline maintenance.
Despite the money spent by the NNPCL for pipeline maintenance, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri had lamented lack of funds to manage pipelines properly in the country.
He said this while speaking at the Energy and Labour Summit 2024 organised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria in Abuja.
“Part of our problem is that pipelines that were traditionally transporting our crude were built in the 1960s and the 1970s and the lifespan is since over. We have identified that even when we can produce, evacuation is a big problem,” he noted.
He had lamented “paucity of funds” to build new pipelines.
“The reason why pipeline vandalism is very easy to do is because the pipelines have all expired they completely corroded and so, anybody can just go and tap it and the thing is busted; but there are better technologies which are more expensive, there are better pipelines that other people are using in other countries, but they are not cheap, We also need to change our model.”
“Now, the NNPC that is our joint venture partner, do they have the money to be able to replace these pipelines? I think NNPC will speak for themselves whether they have the money to be able to do that, and I don’t think they have,” Lokpobiri declared.
He called for public-private partnerships to fix the old pipelines, saying, “That is why we have to go for the global model – PPP. We have to get the private sector to come in.”