Angola Takes Over Nigeria As Africa’s Highest Crude Oil Producer In Africa, US Agency Reveals

The U.S.' Energy Information Administration (EIA) has disclosed that Angola has taken over Nigeria's position as Africa's highest crude oil producer.

As per EIA's latest report, crude oil was produced in Nigeria more than any other country in Africa. However, due to "unplanned production outages--or disruptions--in Nigeria have, at times, resulted in its crude oil production falling below that of Angola," Punch reported.

The report mentioned that disruptions remain the significant and persistent downside risk for crude oil production in Nigeria.

According to the report, Angola's oil production surpassed that of Nigeria in April, as in the third quarter of 2022 operators of the Trans Niger pipeline and the Forcados export terminal closed their facilities for repairs.

The closure of the production facilities has become a major reason for this sharp drop from 1.1 million barrels per day in the second quarter to below one million barrels per day in the third quarter.

While Nigeria's oil production recovered by the beginning of 2023, the oil workers' strike disrupted it again in April. As per the report, the oil production reduced to a bit more than one million in April, dropping below Angola's production.

According to the outlet, Angola produced 1.063 million barrels per day in April, while Nigeria produced 999,000 barrels per day. Aside from Angola surpassing Nigeria, the report also shared the steps taken by Nigeria to improve oil production.

The Petroleum Industry Act was passed in August 2021 in Nigeria, which listed changes in Nigeria's hydrocarbons legal framework including creating two industry regulators--the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.

Furthermore, oil theft was another reason for the reduced oil production in Nigeria. Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila said in April that the country might lose $23 billion due to this crime. As per the speaker, in January and July 2022 alone, the country lost $10 billion to crude oil theft.

Gbajabiamila explained, "Available data shows that the country may lose $23bn this year to crude oil theft, with concerns being expressed about the possibility of meeting the 2023 proposed production target of 1.69 million barrels per day due to the myriad of issues militating against the attainment of this target, such vandalism, in-accurate reconciliation, insecurity, and unreasonable operational cost."