The report that Nigeria’s crude oil production rose to 1.185 million barrels per day in November 2022, representing the highest output by the country in the past seven months is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that Nigeria’s crude oil production rose to 1.185 million barrels per day in November 2022, representing the highest output by the country in the past seven months.
Latest oil production figures obtained from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission on Sunday showed that the country’s output increased by 171,119 barrels per day in November when compared to what was recorded in the preceding month.
This came as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced on Sunday that the Document of Cooperation between the cartel and non-OPEC members had stabilised the oil market.
Data sourced by our correspondent from the upstream regulator indicated Nigeria’s crude oil production in October 2022 was 1.014m barrels per day, but this moved up to 1.186mbpd in November.
The last time Nigeria’s crude oil production crossed this figure was in April 2022 when the country pumped 1.219mbpd of crude, outside blended and unblended condensates.
Further analysis of data from the regulator showed that the country’s crude oil output in May, June, July, August and September was 1,024,317bpd; 1,158,274bpd; 1,083,899bpd; 972,394bpd, and 937,766bpd respectively.
Nigeria’s oil production had been crashing since 2021 following massive oil theft in the Niger Delta region, a development that denied the country billions of dollars in revenue.
However, in the past few months, the Federal Government has intensified efforts to check the menace of oil theft. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, in partnership with security agencies and private contractors, has deployed measures to tackle the challenge.
These measures seem to be paying off, as oil production increased consecutively in the months of October and November 2022.
On the stability of the global oil market, OPEC Secretary-General, Haitham Al Ghais, said in a statement that the Declaration of Cooperation by the cartel and its allies had been on for six years, noting that it had also helped in securing global energy security.
The DoC, which was signed by 23 oil producing countries, aims to secure sustainable oil market stability through cooperation and dialogue for the benefit of all producers, consumers and investors.
The newspaper says that the World Bank has projected that debt servicing will gulp 123.4 per cent of the Federal Government’s revenue in 2023.
This was a decline from the earlier projection in its October Africa’s Pulse report, which is a biannual analysis of the near-term macroeconomic outlook for the region, published during the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings in April and October.
In the Africa’s Pulse report, the Washington-based bank had said that Nigeria’s debt service to revenue ratio could stand at 102.3 per cent by the end of 2022.
It had described the public debt in Nigeria as concerning due to the rising debt service-to-revenue ratio.
However, the situation would be dire in 2023 as debt surviving would exceed 118 per cent of revenue reported in the first four months of 2022.
In his presentation document, the World Bank lead economist for Nigeria noted that borrowing more money was not the solution for Nigeria.
The document read, “Borrowing more is not the solution: debt costs are rising rapidly, squeezing non-interest spending.
“Debt servicing has surged over the past decade and is expected to continue increasing over the medium-term, crowding out productive spending.”
The PUNCH recently reported that Nigeria’s public debt rose to N44.06tn in the third quarter of 2022, with the country struggling with a repayment burden.
According to a press statement published on the website of the Debt Management Office, the total public debt stock rose from N42.84tn recorded in the second quarter to N44.06tn in the third quarter of 2022.
This showed that there was a 2.85 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter, with Nigeria acquiring N1.22tn debt within three months.
This was according to a presentation made by the new World Bank Lead Economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, in November 2022, which was obtained by our correspondent.
The document was entitled, ‘Nigeria Public Finance Review: Fiscal Adjustment for Better and Sustainable Development Results.’
The document projected that debt servicing would gulp 100.2 per cent of Federal Government revenue by the end of 2022.
The Punch also reports that plastic waste in Nigeria has been on the increase due to the increasing consumption of plastics by citizens across the country, the United Nations has said.
It disclosed this through the UN Industrial Development Organisation, stressing that the consumption of plastics in Nigeria jumped by 116.26 per cent within a period of 15 years to 1.25 million tonnes.
UNIDO Country Representative and Regional Director for West Africa, Jean Bakole, disclosed this at the inauguration of the steering committee for the project tagged, ‘Promoting Sustainable Plastics Value Chains Through Circular Economy Practices.’
In his speech, which was made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Sunday, Bakole said, “As the most populated nation with the largest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on the African continent, Nigeria’s plastic waste problem is on the increase.
“This is based on its increased consumption from 578,000 tonnes of plastics in 2007 to about 1,250,000 tonnes. Therefore, the per capita plastic consumption has grown by five per cent annually from 4kg to 6.5kg. It is estimated that each citizen would consume about 7.5kg of plastics per year.”
He noted that over the years, the mismanagement of plastic waste was not only contaminating the land ecosystem, but was also being released into the marine environment, thereby polluting it and threatening biodiversity and negatively impacting the blue economy.
The UN official said, “Mismanaged plastics and ineffective waste management is also a source of GHG (Greenhouse gas) emissions.
“According to the World Bank, plastic waste accounts for 12 per cent of the total amount of municipal solid wastes generated globally. However, only 14 per cent are collected for recycling while only nine per cent are recycled.”
To address the concern in Nigeria, the Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, who inaugurated the committee said, “It is in response to these challenges that the Federal Ministry of Environment in collaboration with relevant stakeholders took steps to address the plastic issue holistically by adopting the circular economy model.
“In this wise, we have developed the national policies on solid waste and plastic waste management to promote environmental protection, resource and energy efficiency, circular economy practices and enhance the conservation of natural resources through sustainable production and consumption.”
The Guardian says that Nigeria’s trade in goods with the rest of Africa in about five years stood at N15.85 trillion, data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have shown.
The figure covers 2018 till September this year. The value translates to 9.3 per cent of the country’s total foreign trade in the period, underscoring the low level of intra-African trade.
In the same period, the value of the country’s trade with members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) averaged N1.42 trillion yearly, bringing the sum for the period to N7.09 trillion or 4.2 per cent of the total trade in the period.
Nigeria’s foreign trade was estimated at N170.27 trillion in the timeframe, with exports slightly higher at 52.6 per cent share of the nominal value.
The regional trade in the period reviewed was dominated by Nigeria, which aligned with the historical trend. Of the N15.85 trillion regional trade, exports totaled N12.76 trillion or 80.5 per cent while the country imported a paltry N3.09 trillion value of goods.
Also, goods brought into the country from other ECOWAS countries through official routes in the period accounted for 7.5 per cent of the trade value. The value was N528.6 billion whereas the country’s exports to the neighbouring countries were over 12 fold (N6.36 trillion).
The low intra-regional trade, as underpinned by the NBS figures is low, its growth is also anaemic at best and mostly retrogressive.
For instance, in 2019, the figure grew by almost 80 per cent to N5.03 trillion only to slump by 44.7 per cent the following year. Last year saw the value of trade between the biggest regional economy and other African countries improved slightly (6.6 per cent).
GIK/APA