OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Despite Libya having the highest crude oil reserves in Africa, Nigeria has managed to keep its spot as the top crude oil producer in the past year.
Industry data from Statista showed that the West African country with a population of 213.40, was the largest crude producer in 2021 with a daily average crude production of 1.27 million barrels.
Followed by the Northern African country, Libya, the country produced an average of 1.21 million barrels of crude per day in 2021.
Nigeria and Libya have crude oil reserves of 36.9 billion barrels, and 48.4 billion barrels respectively.
Angola produced a daily average of 1.11 million barrels of crude.
North African country Algeria produced an average of 959, 000 barrels of crude per day, while Egypt produced 559, 000 barrels per day.
The Republic of the Congo’s output in 2021 stood at a daily average of 253, 000 barrels, as Gabon churned out an average of 188, 000 per day.
While Ghana’s daily crude production output in 2021 was 176, 000 barrels, Equatorial Guinea’s daily average output was put at 71, 000 barrels.
Chad produced 70, 000 barrels per day.
Africa’s proven crude oil reserves stood at 125.3 billion barrels in 2021 alone, as crude oil has been a major revenue driver for most African countries.
Nigeria is said to have proven reserves equivalent to 237.3 times its annual consumption. This means that, without Net Exports, there would be about 237 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves), according to Worldometer.
Although with capacity to produce more crude oil, Nigeria has continued to blame its low turnout on technical issues, crude oil theft, vandalism and militancy.
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