FG Sold Crude oil Worth $206.06 Billion in Four Years.

Nigeria as Africa’s top oil producer, generated $206.06 billion in revenue from crude oil exports from 2015 to 2019. This is according to the Annual Statistical Bulletin of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. The country’s oil export revenue, however, fell to $45.11 billion in 2019 from $54.51 billion in 2018.

Nigeria was nonetheless the fifth biggest revenue-earner last year in OPEC after Saudi Arabia ($202.37 billion), Iraq ($80.03 billion), Kuwait ($52.43 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($49.64 billion). The country earned $37.98 billion from oil exports in 2017, compared to $27.29 billion in 2016 and $41.17 billion in 2015.

Exports of Nigeria’s crude oil to Europe plunged to 680,600 barrels per day in 2019 from 1.06 million bpd in 2018, according to the report.

The total volume of oil exported to North America slumped by 84 per cent to 27,500 bpd in 2019 while exports to Africa fell by 15.77 per cent to 260,700 bpd.

The country’s exports to Asia and the Pacific rose by 71.72 per cent to 664,900 bpd in 2019, while exports to the Middle East jumped from zero to 122,300bpd.

The report showed that OPEC’s 13 member-states suffered an 18.4 per cent contraction in their oil export revenue in 2019 on slumping international oil prices. The value of OPEC petroleum export revenue fell to $564.9 billion in 2019 from $692.3 billion in 2018 as weak demand growth and continued competition from non-OPEC producers impacted the group.

The figures demonstrate the financial pain OPEC was already facing even before the Coronavirus pandemic wiped out nearly a fifth of global oil demand in the second quarter of 2020, according to S&P Global Platts.

The producer group has maintained efforts to prop up the market through production cuts, as the oil-dependent governments try to defend prices over market share. OPEC cut its production by 1.86 million bpd, while non-OPEC output grew by 1.3 million bpd, or 2.9 per cent.