OPEC pegs Nigeria’s crude export earnings at $206bn in 5 years 

Nigeria’s crude export earnings in the five year period from 2015 to 2019 came to $206.06 billion, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Monday.

OPEC detailed Nigeria’s half-a-decade oil export revenue performance in its 2020 Annual Statistical Bulletin issued on Monday, noting a 20.8% slump from $54.51 billion in 2018 to $45.11 billion in 2019.

Africa’s biggest oil producer ranked fifth behind the United Arab Emirates ($49.64 billion), Kuwait ($52.43 billion), Iraq ($80.03 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($203.37 billion) in the pecking order of OPEC’s top crude oil earners.

Nigeria’s crude oil proceeds crumbled by from $41.17 billion in 2015 to $27.29 billion in 2016, a 33.7% fall around the time of the global oil crash.

It climbed up a year after, however, soaring by 39.2% to $37.98 billion in 2018.

Read also: Nigeria’s crude oil revenue rose in January amidst 50% surge in pipeline vandalism –NNPC report

In 2019, oil exports to Europe cratered down to 680,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 1.06 million the year before, signalling a negative margin of 35.8%.

Nigeria’s gross exports to North America tumbled by 84% to 27,500bpd that same year just as those to the rest of Africa went 15.77% down to 260,000bpd.

664,900 bpd were exported to Asia and Pacific in 2019 while Middle East took delivery of 122,300 bpd.

OPEC members posted an 18.4 per cent depletion in output between them last year, triggering a revenue earnings fall from $692.3 billion to $564.9 billion.

Brent Crude, the international benchmark for Nigeria’s crude grades, traded at an average price of $64 per barrel in 2019 from $71 in 2018, U.S. Energy Information Agency said.

The global oil market has been at the mercy of a fierce oil crash this year with oil prices touching their historic low in April and setting in motion an unprecedented daily supply cut of 9.7 million barrels in an effort to combat glut.

A two-day meeting of OPEC’s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee beginning from Tuesday is nevertheless expected to review the decision by slash output to 7.7 million bpd as the market gradually finds recovery.

Opinions