Several weeks after the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN said the state-oil company, NNPCL, has yet to make remittance to it, records from newly released government data have shown that Nigeria recorded N16 trillion from crude oil sales between January and September this year.
Recall that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, last month said foreign exchange receipt from crude oil sales into Nigeria’s official reserves has dried up steadily, from above $3 billion monthly in 2014 to $0 today.
According to data gathered from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria earned N5.6 trillion in the first quarter, N5.9 trillion in the second quarter and N4.6 trillion in the third quarter of 2022. The NBS data show that the value of crude oil exports in Q3 rose by 16%, when compared to N4 trillion recorded in the corresponding period last year.
Analysts say lower oil production arising from crude theft and subsidy payments for refined petrol is the cause of the dwindling foreign exchange receipts from crude oil sales.
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, in its oil production status report, showed that Nigeria produced less than 1 million bpd in August and September. In that same period, the real growth of the country’s oil GDP reduced by 23 percent, due to the decline in oil production.
Calculations have shown the country’s output averaged 1.34 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first 10 months of 2022, as against the 2022 Budget benchmark of 1.88 million bpd, costing the nation about 161.58 million barrels in lost production worth about $16.7 billion.
The country has also been unable to meet its OPEC quota since November last year at a time of rising oil prices and severe revenue and foreign exchange woes at home.
Analysts blamed massive oil theft, vandalism of major assets, dilapidated infrastructure and declining upstream investment for Nigeria’s inability to earn more petrol dollars.
