Oil exports resume at Nigeria’s Forcados terminal after months of disruption

By Damilola Adeleke

Nigeria has resumed the export of approximately 220,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Forcados terminal. The terminal had been temporarily closed for maintenance on July 12, 2023, after workers detected ‘fumes’ near a buoy where oil was being loaded onto a vessel. This shutdown contributed to Nigeria’s failure to meet the quota assigned by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during that period.

The reopening of the Forcados terminal will have a positive impact on Nigeria’s overall oil production, which experienced a 13.6% decline to an average of 1.08 million barrels per day in July 2023 compared to 1.25 million barrels per day in June.

However, the latest production figure poses a challenge for the Nigerian government, which had set a production target of 1.69 million barrels per day in the 2023 budget. Furthermore, the current production volume falls short of the OPEC-assigned quota of 1.7 million barrels per day for Nigeria.

It’s important to note that the data released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) also indicates that blended and unblended condensate oil daily production in July stood at 38,258 barrels and 174,509 barrels respectively. Condensate oil production is not considered part of Nigeria’s OPEC production requirement.

In total, the daily average oil production for July amounted to 1.29 million barrels per day, marking a 12.8% decrease from the total average daily production of 1.48 million barrels in June.

The NNPC Limited anticipates that oil production will rise to 1.8 million barrels per day by the fourth quarter of the year, attributing the expected increase to measures aimed at boosting production that have been implemented.