OpeOluwani Akintayo
25 January 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Nigeria lost over $14 billion to oil production deferments in 2016, according to figures released by the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR.
The oil industry regulator said in its 2016 Oil and Gas Industry Report, the latest such report published by the agency, that the country lost a total 271,387,005 barrels of crude oil to deferments during the year, an annual average of 741,495 barrels of oil per day.
As at December 2016, Nigeria’s Bonny Light traded at $53 per barrel.
Based on this price, SweetcrudeReports‘ calculation showed that the loss resulting from the production deferments for the year stood at $14,344,220,775. This represents an average loss of $39,299,235 daily.
DPR attributed the loss to deferments in production resulting from shutdowns or shut-ins arising mainly from pipeline vandalism and some operational issues.
A breakdown of the data showed that in January, an average daily deferment of 424,076 barrels per day, BPD, and a total 13,146,365 barrels, were recorded.
In February, Nigeria lost an average of 389,546BPD, giving a total of 11,296,831 barrel for the month, while in March, an average of 394,516BPD was lost, a total of 12,230,002 barrels in the month.
April saw an average daily shut-in of 494,839 barrels, totalling 14,845,185 barrels for the month.
The loss for May edged up to an average of 764,926BPD, while 23,712,705 barrels was deferred during the month.
The figures for June slid a bit to an average of 711,189BPD, and 21,335,660 barrels for the month.
July did not see any reduction in loss, as Nigeria lost an average of 799,077 barrels daily, while a total 24,771,393 barrels was recorded that month.
The highest level of deferment was experienced in August as 1,091,072BPD was lost on the average – a total of 33,823,232 barrels for the month.
In September, the country deferred an average oil production of 986,087BPD, giving a total of 29,582,598 barrels for the month.
In October, the average loss dropped a little to 961,807BPD while 29,816,024 barrels was recorded for the entire month.
November saw an average loss of 787,724BPD and 23,631,709 barrels for the month.
The month of December witnessed the second highest average production loss of 1,070,816BPD, and 33,195,300 barrels for the month.
Total deferment for the year stood at 271,387,005 barrels.
A further evaluation showed that out of a total of 386 producing fields under allocation as at 2016, the shut-ins occurred in 101 production fields, living 285 fields in production throughout the year.
While Addax Petroleum had 14 fields producing, 8 fields experienced shut-ins due to contractual reasons and operational issues.
Agip Energy and Natural Resources, AENR, had just one functioning production field and no shut-in.
Allied Energy also had one oil production field in operation and no shut-in while AMNI International Petroleum had two oil fields functional throughout the year.
Out of Aiteo’s four fields, three produced, while one was shut down for no stated reason. Atlas had just one field which was functional throughout the year.
Brittania-U also had one producing field and no shut-in.
However, for operational reason not stated, Cavendish’s one field did not produce a single barrel of oil in 2016.
Chevron which had the second highest number of fields – 34 – had production on 28, while 6 fields experienced shut-ins for operational reasons.
Stardeep Petroleum’s one field was operational throughout the year.
Consolidated’s two fields were in production, while Continental’s one field was also in production.
Dubri also had one field operational.
For Total Exploration and Production, it had 10 fields operational and 8 fields shut-in in the year. The shut-ins were as a result of operational reasons and sabotage.
Total Upstream, Mid Western, Moni Pulo, Nigerian Agip Exploration Ltd, Energia and Express, had one field each operational in the year, while Esso had two functional fields.
Mobil had 20 functional fields in the year and 15 field shut-in due to downtime at its Qua Iboe Terminal 48 trunk line.
Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, had 25 functional fields, and 13 field shut-ins due to facilities sabotage.
