Nigeria is one of the largest oil producers in the world. At the beginning of 2020, its daily production exceeded two million barrels. Nigeria’s oil production decreased to 1.14 million barrels per day during January 2021, the lowest value recorded in the last years.
Poverty and inequality in Nigeria are not due to a lack of resources, but to the ill-use, mis-allocation and misappropriation of such resources. At the root is a culture of corruption combined with a political elite out of touch with the daily struggles of average Nigerians.
The country has been struggling to stem rampant crude theft in an economy that relies on oil for its foreign exchange. Nigeria loses about 150,000 barrels of oil per day to individuals who illegally tap pipelines crisscrossing the Niger Delta region, according to government records
Nigeria lost $3.2 billion in crude oil theft between January 2021 and February 2022, according to the statistics presented at the recently held meeting in Abuja, between the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Oil Producers Trade Section, and the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG).
Currently, we have only 9 crude oil producing States in Nigeria that could be said to be really harnessing their crude oil potentials. These states includes Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, Ondo, Edo, Imo and Abia.
Petroleum Industry
The largest and most economically important industry in Nigeria is the country’s petroleum industry. The country is among the top ten largest producers of oil globally and has the largest oil producer in the continent. Crude oil and petroleum products are the country’s chief export commodities which account for over 98% of the country’s annual exports. Oil exports generate an estimated 14% of Nigeria’s GDP and are responsible for about 83% of the government’s revenue.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer but the west African nation struggles to meet its energy needs, a struggle that has persisted for many decades. Yet Nigerians have continued to battle poor power supply with the situation worsening in the country. the country’s power grid collapsed twice, causing a huge black out across most parts of the country.But not many would have imagined the situation to get terribly bad recently.
In February, a severe fuel shortage pushed prices up to 1.50 dollars per litre on the parallel market. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) announced that 100 million litre of adulterated petrol had been imported by error prompting a withdrawal from the market.
A delay in cargo ships carrying refined oil due to the war in Ukraine was also blamed for the shortage. Long queues flowing onto the roads soon lined filling stations across the country for days and weeks, climaxing into a huge and almost nationwide black out last week. And Nigerians suffered a lot and are still suffering.
It is now nearly a decade since Nigeria ‘privatized’ its power sector. The process led to the creation of 11 distribution companies (Discos), while seven generating companies were sold to different private companies. But nothing significant has changed in the experience of consumers and year in, year out, both the government and the Discos blame each other for the failures and woes.
Nigeria has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt , and one each in Kaduna and Warri. The refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd.
A comprehensive network of pipelines and depots strategically located throughout Nigeria links these refineries. Despite being Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, Nigeria imports almost all of its fuel and that is because none of its four refineries is operational- presenting a big paradox.
Nigeria Today View
Oil pipeline vandalism over the years had been one of the major factors contributing significantly to environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region, which accounts for about 70 to 80 per cent of our oil and gas sector that drives the economy which the government need to attend to immediately
