Nigeria, Saudi Arabia’s output decline behind drop in OPEC crude production

The decline in crude oil production from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia made crude production from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) drop to a two-year low in November, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Nigeria has continued to be in the league of member countries that are the main drivers behind fall in OPEC output in recent times.

Output by the 12-member OPEC decreased 245,000 barrels to an average 30.007 million barrels per day (bpd) last month from 30.252 million in October, the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts showed.

The October total was revised lower by 369,000 bpd because of changes to the Saudi and Libyan estimates.

Nigeria’s production dropped 100,000 bpd to 1.89 million in November, the lowest level since May. Production is often

disrupted by unrest in the Niger Delta, the country’s main oil-producing region.

Nigeria, OPEC’s seventh-largest producer, has yet to come near the 2.53 million bpd estimate in the 2013 budget, due largely to oil theft which has assumed an unprecedented dimension in recent times and the nation has seen significant drop in revenue from its oil and gas industry.

The amount lost to oil theft in the first quarter was estimated at over $1.23 billion (N190 billion), according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). October oil revenue from crude sales was N443.05 billion ($2.7 million), 5 percent lower than it projected, according to Ministry of Finance.

Saudi Arabian crude output declined 150,000 barrels a day to 9.65 million. The desert kingdom pumped 10 million barrels a day in September, the most in monthly data going back to 1989. The October estimate was reduced by 200,000 barrels a day.

Libyan output slipped 40,000 bpd to 210,000 in November, the lowest level since September 2011. Two years after the war that swept the late Muammar Gaddafi from power, Libyan government efforts to revive the oil industry are being stymied by feuding militias and protests.

With more than 200,000 bpd of crude oil being lost to pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and spills, Nigeria ranks fourth in the league of countries who contribute to global oil supply outages, estimates from analysts at Deutsche Bank and other shipping and industry sources recently showed.

According to the estimates, total global outages amount to 3.15 millions bpd, about 3.5 percent of daily world oil demand of 90 million bpd.

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, earns more than 90 percent of its foreign exchange and about 80 percent of government revenue from its oil industry.