Nigerian oil output has risen to 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) and keeps increasing, Mele Kyari, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Group chief executive officer has told reporters.
"We are growing production. In July 2022, we were at less than 1 million barrels per day. As at yesterday, we were at 1.6 million barrels and hopefully we will meet the OPEC quota of 1.8 million," Kyari stated.
In August 2022, the country's oil production dropped to 972,000 bpd, according to the information provided by the Nigerian oil regulation commission. Thus, the country's oil production sector became less than Angola's, which amounted to 1.088 million bpd in the same month.
As of December 2022, Nigeria returned its position of Africa's No. 1 oil producer with 1.235 million bpd, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
At the same time, the country is making efforts to manage the problem of oil theft.
In October 2022, NNPC said Nigeria had seen increased oil theft in recent years which resulted in losing nearly 600,000 bpd and made the enterprise carry out thorough surveillance over its facilities.
Later that month, Nigerian authorities seized an oil supertanker Heroic Idun with two million barrels capability, which was also accused of being involved in the oil theft.
According to the government, although the tanker had no oil on board, it was accused of a false pirate attack claim, crossing a restricted area with no permission, and attempting to load crude oil illegally.
Along with being the continent's top oil producer, there is a real possibility for Nigeria to become Africa's largest oil refiner by 2025, a pan-African investment research firm, Hawilti, said in its report entitled 'Refineries Watch Q4 2022'.
According to the report, the construction of the Dangote refinery in the city of Lekki, southwestern Nigeria, along with rehabilitating already existing state-run refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna would significantly increase Nigeria's oil refining capacity. Achieving the two aims would raise the oil refining capacity by nearly 1.095 million bpd in total.