05 September 2012, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – NIGERIA, Africa’s largest oil producer, said crude output including condensates and natural gas liquids dropped by 3.2 percent in the second quarter.
Production fell to 2.12 million barrels a day, or 193 million barrels, from 2.19 million barrels a day, or 199 million barrels, a year earlier, the Abuja-based Central Bank of Nigeria said in an Aug. 29 report on its website.
It didn’t give a reason for the drop in output. Total oil exports in the same period declined 4 percent to 1.67 million barrels a day from 1.74 million.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with more than 160 million people, depends on oil exports for more than 80 percent of its revenue and 95 percent of foreign-exchange income. The West African nation earned $196 billion from oil and gas sales in the four years through 2010, according to the statistics office. The price of Brent crude has climbed 8 percent this year and was trading at $116.34 a barrel today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.
Total crude and condensate output in Nigeria reached a record 2.7 million barrels a day, the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. said on Aug. 2 after security improved in the southern oil-producing Niger River delta region.
Energy companies in Nigeria have stepped up production as attacks on installations in the oil-rich Niger River delta declined following a 2009 amnesty for militants in the region fighting for a greater share of oil resources. Attacks by armed groups in the Niger delta region, home to Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, cut more than 28 percent of the country’s output from 2006 to 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
At least 90 percent of the country’s crude is pumped by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA in joint ventures with the NNPC.