Data by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has shown that President Bola Tinubu may have misled Nigerians with his claims on oil production in the country.
During the speech to address issues raised by the #EndBadGovernance protesters on August 4, President Tinubu had claimed that Nigeria’s crude oil production hit 1.6 million barrels per day. He had further claimed that this development is due to reforms by his administration in the oil sector.
“Our once-declining oil and gas industry is experiencing a resurgence on the back of the reforms I announced in May 2024 to address the gaps in the Petroleum Industry Act.
“Last month, we increased our oil production to 1.61million barrels per day, and our gas assets are receiving the attention they deserve. Investors are coming back, and we have already seen two Foreign Direct Investments signed of over half a billion dollars since then.” he had stated.
Meanwhile, OPEC data just released has shown that by direct communication, Nigeria’s crude oil production per day stood at 1.3 million barrels per day as of July, 2024, which is the month Tinubu referred to.
Based on secondary sources, crude oil production was also recorded as 1.3 million barrels daily.
This is about 300,000 barrels daily below what Tinubu claimed to be Nigeria’s production.
The data also shows that Nigeria has not reached the 1.4 million barrels daily it reached in January this year based on the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) data.
OPEC data is also usually in-tandem with the Nigerian government own data based on a comparison of data from NUPRC and OPEC.
For instance, in May 2024, by direct communication, OPEC put Nigeria’s crude oil production at 1.25 million barrels daily, same as the NUPRC figure which also quoted 1.25 million barrels daily.
In June 2024, OPEC stated that Nigeria’s crude oil production stood at 1.27 million barrels daily per direct communication, same as what the NUPRC published.
It is unclear how Tinubu got his own data that he used to address Nigerians on August 4.
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