13th June 2025
According to data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, crude oil production output has dropped from 1.48mbpd in April to 1.45mbpd in May.
This is a major setback on the efforts by the Federal Government to ramp up oil production to over two million barrels per day,
With this development, Nigeria’s daily oil production declined again in May, falling from 1.68 million barrels per day in April to 1.65mbpd.
The country’s crude production rose from 1.40mbpd in March to 1.48mbpd in April and signaled a boost for the 2.1mbpd oil target.
In its remarks, the NUPRC explained that the lowest and peak combined crude oil and condensate production in May were 1.61 million bopd and 1.810 million bopd, respectively.
However, the fall in May’s daily crude production appears to have eroded the successes recorded in the fourth month, casting a shadow on the country’s ability to achieve the 2mbpd target.
It stated that the daily average production in May was 1.657,435 barrels per day, comprising both crude oil 1,452,941 bopd and condensate 204,493 bopd
The commission said the average crude oil production was 97 per cent of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, quota, which is 1.5mbpd.
When President Bola Tinubu appointed Ahmadu Kida (Chairman) and Bayo Ojulari (Group Chief Executive Officer), as the new board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, he gave them a mandate to raise oil production to 2 million barrels daily by 2027 and three million barrels daily by 2030.
Concurrently, the government wanted gas production jacked to 8 billion cubic feet daily by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet by 2030. Furthermore, President Tinubu expected the new board to elevate NNPC’s share of crude oil refining output to 200,000 barrels by 2027 and reach 500,000 by 2030.
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The NNPC GCEO, Ojulari, had during their inauguration said the team had already met with industry stakeholders to review operations and business relationships and noted that the management had started optimizing various aspects of the company, turnaround maintenance of the refineries inclusive.
Ojulari, said oil production had risen to 1.7 million barrels in two months from 1.5 million barrels, with the target of reaching 1.9 million barrels by year-end, adding that,
“We will promise what we can deliver, and we will deliver on our promise,”
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, had repeatedly stated that Nigeria could produce 3 million barrels of oil daily. Nigeria raised its average daily crude output to 1,538,697 barrels in January, which was about 39,000 barrels above the 1.5mbpd set for the oil-producing country by OPEC.
Nigeria had failed to meet her crude oil production quota approved by OPEC throughout 2022, 2023, and 2024 consecutively. However, the government started the new year on a good note with crude production surge from 1.4mbpd in December 2024 to 1.5mbpd in the first month of 2025.
