A new report by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has shown that Nigeria lost 362.28 million barrels of crude oil due to measurement errors, sabotage, and production adjustments between 2014 and 2023.
This implies that the country lost about 992,547 barrels of crude oil daily due to the above-mentioned issues in 10 years.
NEITI disclosed this in its latest report titled, ‘Oil & Gas Industry Audit 2023: An independent report assessing and reconciling physical, process and financial flows within Nigeria’s oil & gas industry’.
The agency also noted that the total crude oil production deferment during the review period was 110.66 million barrels.
The report on crude oil losses was compiled by reviewing multiple sources, including the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission submissions during the NEITI audit period and the signed-off reports from companies, such as Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
The report read, “Crude oil loss was 7.68 million barrels which was 3.33 per cent of the total metered production at the flow station (7.675 million barrels) for the affected companies and crude type. The losses resulted from 2.910m million barrels measurement error (1.3 per cent), 5.252 million barrels theft and sabotage (2.3 per cent) and 486.746 thousand barrels production/terminal adjustment (0.21 per cent).
“Crude losses were 7.68 million barrels in 2023, compared to 36.69 million barrels in 2022. This dropped by 79 per cent (29.02 million barrels). This underscores the positive impact of government initiatives aimed at reducing crude oil losses, enhancing operational efficiency, and improving accountability within the sector.
“However, considering the proven crude oil reserves in the country, there is a need to ramp up production capacity to 2013 annual average of 800 million barrels through forensic audit of the wellheads and production platforms.”
Making recommendations to stop these losses, the agency urged the government to consider viable public-private partnership arrangements to deploy advanced digital solutions to monetize savings from crude losses.
