The production of 50.788 million barrels of crude oil valued at N1.474tn was stalled between January and October last year due to community interferences and other challenges forcing oil terminals to shut down production 222 times within the period, OKECHUKWU NNODIM reports
Nigeria’s crude oil earnings were depleted by about N1.474tn between January and October 2021 due to various concerns at terminals that prevented the production of 50.788 million barrels of oil during the 10-month period.
It was gathered that community interferences, industrial actions by oil workers, COVID-19 outbreak at some terminals, pipeline vandalism, among others, curtailed oil production in various terminals, leading to huge financial losses for Nigeria.
This came as stakeholders urged the Federal Government to push for the deployment of latest technologies in securing oil infrastructure, as well as try to avoid issues that would warrant industrial actions.
Industry data obtained from different reports of the Crude Oil Marketing Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited in Abuja showed that in January, February and March, the volumes of oil lost due to production shut-ins were 3,678,000; 4,105,000 and 3,142,000 respectively.
The losses posted in the months of April, May, June and July were 4,578,700; 4,187,500; 6,035,000 and 7,193,520 respectively.
It continued in August, September and October, as crude oil production losses due to shut-ins were put at 6,680,620; 6,362,700 and 4,824,946 respectively.
