Nigeria's rig count static despite growth in oil production

Fresh data released by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC has shown that despite Nigeria’s increasing oil output in February 2023, the country's oil rig count stayed the same.

The number of rigs (active) signifies the volume of exploration, and how productive the oil and gas sector of a country is. A good number of active rigs can place the country as an investment destination and a source of economic growth.

Nigeria’s rig count has in the past year, experienced a marked growth as it went from just six in January 2022, to 13 in January 2023.

This was also evident in the volume of oil production as output in Barrels per Day, BPD, experienced a steady increase from December 2022 to February 2023.

The production figure for December 2022 was 1.235 million BPD, oil production output for January 2023 was 1.258 million BPD, while the February figure stood at 1.306 million BPD.

The data which showed oil production figures for February 2023 however, revealed that no new rigs came into the country, despite the improvement in production.

Nigeria's oil rigs faced a decline when the average number of active rigs fell from 16 in 2019 to 11 in 2020, it further dipped to seven in 2021.

In the third quarter of 2022, the rig count fell further to nine according to OPEC data. It witnessed another drop as it fell to seven in September but increased by a figure to eight in October.

The rig count steadily increased within October and December 2022 as it rose to 12 thus marking a major positive change of 8.33 per cent from November last year and 116.7 per cent when compared with figures from a year ago.

It further jumped to 13 in January 2023 and with the growth, it was expected that the number of active rigs would get to 14 by March 2023.

Recent information has shown the expectations may have to wait a bit longer.