Nigeria’s daily oil production rose 14.63 per cent in the month of November, 2022 to 1.414 million from 1.23 million barrels recorded in October, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC has reported.

The November figures released on Thursday by the Commission showed that the volume includes 228,489 barrels of blended and unblended condensate oil.

The actual crude oil production volume of 1.18 million barrels per day however , remains, significantly short of Nigeria’s quota of 1.8 million daily set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Condensate oil is not part of Nigeria’s OPEC quota.

The country has struggled to meet production quota due high oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

Speaking on the situation, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva expressed optimism that production in the country would hit 1.8 million barrels per day by the end of May, 2023.

The Minister said the government will continue to improve security along the tracks of the major crude oil pipelines and block every leakage through which crude oil is stolen by oil thieves and pipeline vandals.

He explained that the inability of Nigeria to meet the current OPEC quota is not due to lack of production capacity on the part of crude oil producers “but because a lot of producers decided not to inject into the pipelines because they were losing a lot of their productions when they inject into the pipelines”.

“Once we are able to build enough confidence in the security of the pipelines, they (producers) will then be able to inject into the pipelines once again and once that happens, we will be able to meet up with our OPEC quotas. That is where we are going and the early signals are there that we are making very good progress. The Minister said.

Silva added “Our pipelines have issues and we put security structures in place involving the communities, the security, oil companies and government and we are beginning to see some early signs of improvement. Our production for example has improved from where we were in the past.

“We are producing over a million barrels now and we believe that when we have built confidence enough on the pipelines and all the producers begin to inject into the pipelines that have been secured, we will be able to produce quickly to meet our OPEC quota. That’s really our plan and I am hoping that before the exit of this administration, we should be able to meet our OPEC quota”.