In Nigeria’s 2025 budget, the federal government targets a crude oil production of 2.06 million bpd, including condensate, pegging it at a $75 per barrel oil price.
On March 7, a Reuters’ survey showed that higher exports and increased demand from the huge new African refinery, Dangote, pushed Nigeria’s oil production in February to 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) above its OPEC+ quota of 1.5 million bpd.
As part of the resolutions at a meeting on November 30, 2023, the OPEC increased Nigeria’s production level to 1.5 million bpd for 2024. On June 2, 2024, OPEC extended Nigeria’s production quota of 1.5 million bpd to 2025. OPEC further extended Nigeria’s production level to December 2026.
Meanwhile, Nigeria risks dwindling oil revenue as 905,000 bpd big projects stalled, according to Channels TV, saying the delay poses potential risks to the Federal Government’s plan to double its economy in 2025, partly anchored on increased oil production.
These include Zabazaba, 150,000 bpd; Shell’s Bonga South West, 225,000 bpd; Bonga North project, 100,000 bpd; Chevron Nsiko project, 100,000 bpd; ExxonMobil’s Bosi, 140,000 bpd; Satellite Field development phase, 80,000 bpd; and Ude, 110,000 bpd.
Wale Edun, minister of finance, said the federal government plans to hit about 7 per cent annual GDP growth, noting, “Because it is at that level you begin to lift people out of poverty.
“In 2025, the country expects stronger revenue growth, higher oil production, continued savings from the non-spending of subsidies and greater ease of doing business to reach this lofty target.”
This comes as Nigeria struggles to shore up her economy from a very low ebb; attention has been focusing on efficiency and transparency in the management of her major export and revenue-earning resource, crude oil.
Nigeria has not met its OPEC supply quota since 2022. In the first five months of 2024, Nigeria fell short of its OPEC quota by about 42 million barrels, which could have resulted in a loss of $3.57 billion in revenue.
Read also: Why Trump’s oil price cut won’t budge Nigeria, OPEC
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) allocates the Federation’s share of oil production to either exports or domestic use. The domestic use component is called domestic crude allocation (DCA). Revenue from DCA is received in naira, while revenue from exports is received in dollars.
In a nutshell, the more crude oil the nation exports, the more foreign exchange it earns and the better the economy, all things being equal.
According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), between January 11 and 17, 2025, it uncovered a total of 179 incidents of crude oil theft in one week across the Niger Delta region.
A video released by the NNPC showed 29 illegal pipeline connections and 55 illegal refineries reportedly uncovered within the period. It disclosed that security forces in Bayelsa and Abia states uncovered illegal pipeline connections and conducted repairs on them, as the week also revealed hidden storage sites used for illegal activities in Rivers and other locations in Abia.
In the same vein, the federal government in November last year said more than N4.3 trillion worth of crude oil was stolen in 7,143 pipeline vandalism cases within a period of five years.
It said this at the Nigeria International Pipeline Technology and Security Conference in Abuja, with the theme, ‘Bolstering Regulations, Technology and Security for Growth’.
In a presentation by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the organisation said oil theft and losses in Nigeria had become a national emergency.
Ogbonnaya Orji, executive secretary, NEITI, said oil theft was an emergency that posed serious threats to oil exploration and exploitation with huge negative consequences on economic growth, business prospects and profit earnings by oil companies.
Providing data from the agency’s reports to back his claims, he said: “NEITI disclosed that in the five years, 2017 to 2021, Nigeria recorded 7,143 cases of pipeline breakages and deliberate vandalism resulting in crude theft and product losses of 208.639 million barrels valued at $12.74 million or N4.325 trillion.”
The reports also noted that during the same period, Nigeria spent N471.493 billion to either repair or maintain pipelines.
Orji pointed out that from NEITI’s 2021 Oil and Gas Industry Report released in September 2024, the sector accounted for 72.26 per cent of Nigeria’s total export and government’s foreign exchange, 40.55 per cent of government revenue, and provided 19,171 jobs.
“From NEITI’s reports over the years, and recently insights from our membership of the Special Investigative Panel on Oil Theft and Losses, we are aware that oil theft is perpetrated mainly through pipeline clamping, illegal connections on major pipelines, exploitation of abandoned oil wellheads, pipeline breakages and vandalism of key national assets to illegally syphon crude into waiting vessels stationed in strategic terminals.
“These criminal exploits take place most times in an atmosphere of communities’ complicity and conspiracy of silence,” he said.
“As you are aware, illegal connections, pipeline clamping, etc., cannot be done by just anybody. And so, your association is largely complicit by failing to put in place stringent regulation and appropriate sanctions to check the involvement of your members.
“For instance, NEITI has put in the public domain empirical data of oil theft and losses at 619.7 million barrels of crude, valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion between 2009 and 2020.
“In addition, Nigeria lost 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products from refineries, valued at $1.84 billion at the rate of 140,000 bpd, from 2009 to 2018.
“Thus, the total value of crude losses between 2009 and 2020 is higher than the size of the country’s foreign reserves and almost 10 times Nigeria’s oil savings in the Excess Crude Account,” he stated.
These reports are indeed very troubling, and the facts and claims put forward represent a slap in the face to any right-thinking person, as they speak of widespread corruption, complacency and impunity.
The very technical nature of the industry and the volume of daily pilfering can hardly be conducted by novices or in secrecy, suggesting that persons with high levels of technical know-how are involved in the scheme.
The volumes of products moved also suggest that some people are sleeping on the job or deliberately looking the other way. Given the situation of the nation’s economy today and the urgent need to shore it up, we certainly can no longer afford to accommodate this barefaced scooping away of our natural resources.
Facts, figures and processes reeled out over time make it clear that the looting of our commonwealth is a wicked and high-level conspiracy and that what is required to stem it is the will and resolve of those vested with the responsibility, trust and instrumentation to secure the resource, to stand up in the national interest.
