13.21 million oil barrels worth $1.43bn lost to massive oil theft in 2022

The report obtained from the Nigeria Upstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) also indicated that out of the eight months under review, oil production increased in just two months.

The report corroborates a recent intel showing Nigeria failed to hit the oil benchmark set in the 2022 budget of producing 1.88 million barrels per day.

Between January and August 2022, only 51.3 per cent of the country’s crude production forecast was hit.

A total of 283.77 million barrels was produced during the period as against the 466.2 million barrels forecast in the 2022 budget for the period showing a projected loss of 182.4 million barrels.

While many activities can be linked to oil losses, oil theft alone accounted for the loss of 13.21 million barrels during the period in review.

In the month of January 2022, the volume of total crude oil production was 43.35 million barrels, this figure showed data for just crude oil without condensates. The volume witnessed a loss of 8.13 million barrels in the following month, February 2022 as it dropped to 35.22 million barrels.

There was a surge in March, as production increased to 38.36 million barrels, showing an increment of 3.14 million barrels.

Production volume again, dipped by April as the production dropped to 36.58 million barrels thus experiencing a loss of 1.78 million barrels in that month.

Oil production in May still witnessed low turnout as it crashed to 31.76 million barrels showing a loss of 4.82 million barrels when compared to the output in April.

There was a noticeable increase in June as production surged to 34.75 million barrels.

This represented a gain of 2.99 million barrels.

Production output dropped again in July to 33.6 million barrels, revealing a loss of 1.15 million barrels.

Oil production further crashed in August with an output of 30.14 million barrels, representing a loss of 3.46 million barrels.

It was observed that the total losses stood at 19.34 million barrels, while what was gained was 6.13 million barrels, leaving a cumulative loss of 13.21 million barrels during the review period.