Nigeria loses 1 oil rig, drops behind Libya and Angola in oil production

Globally, the upstream sector of the petroleum industry uses the rig count as a major index for measuring exploration and other activities.

Earlier this year, Nigeria's rig count was six, which was very low and the rig count figure later progressed steadily to hit 11 four months later in April.

This figure was sustained till July when the industry started developing some setbacks and the number further dropped to 10.

Following this development coupled with other setbacks like crude oil theft, the volume of oil production in the country nose-dived to 972,000 barrels per day in August 2022 from 1,083,899 barrels per day produced in July.

According to OPEC, Angola and Libya produced higher volumes during the same period and overtook Nigeria.

OPEC’s September 2022 report also showed that Angola became Africa’s highest crude oil producer for the month under review with an average production of 1.187 million barrels per day.

Libya followed closely with crude oil production averaging 1.123 million barrels per day for the same month.

This further confirmed another report recently released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) confirming Nigeria's low performance during the month in review.

The drop has been noted to be the lowest data about Nigeria's oil exploration in a long while.

On the reasons for the drop in rig count, the NURPC noted that the industry had faced a lack of investment from operators in the industry including the International Oil Companies, IoCs and their indigenous counterparts.