Nigeria lost about N289.6bn crude oil revenue in November 2023 following a plunge in the country’s oil output last month, when compared to what it pumped in the preceding month of October.
An analysis of the country’s latest crude oil production figures, obtained from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission in Abuja on Sunday, showed that Nigeria produced 41,867,775 million barrels of crude (excluding condensates) in October.
But this plunged to 37,508,971 barrels in November, representing a decline of 4,358,804 million barrels when matched against what the country produced in October.
The average price of Brent, the global benchmark for crude, in November 2023 was $82.94/barrel, according to Country Economy, an international statistical firm.
By losing 4,358,804 million barrels of crude in November, the value of oil that was lost by Nigeria in the month under review was about $361.52m.
A global rates firm, exchangerates.org, said that the average exchange rate of the naira against the United States dollar in November was N801/$. This implies that Nigeria’s oil revenue in November crashed by about N289.6bn.
But despite the crash in oil output, the Federal Government insisted that Nigeria would meet and surpass the 2024 crude oil budget benchmark of 1.7 million barrels per barrel.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, had insisted on Tuesday that the country would meet its oil production benchmark in the 2024 budget of 1.7mbpd.
Lokpobiri had also said the country has the capacity to increase crude oil production to two million barrels per day.
