A recent report from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that Nigeria lost a staggering 362.28 million barrels of crude oil between 2014 and 2023.
The report showed that these losses were due to various issues such as measurement errors, sabotage, and production adjustments.
This translates to a daily loss of approximately 992,547 barrels of crude oil over the 10-year period.
It also revealed that the total crude oil production deferment during the review period was 110.66 million barrels.
NEITI defines deferment as a stoppage in production due to scheduled and unscheduled repairs and maintenance, pipeline breaks/leaks, or poor equipment performance.
Nigeria has struggled to fully leverage its oil and gas potential due to persistent management challenges, which have been exacerbated by the use of outdated and corroded pipelines for transporting crude oil.
The report disclosed a steady increase in crude losses over the years, with the highest loss of 101.05 million recorded in 2016.
However, there is a glimmer of hope as the report insisted that the losses have reduced greatly in 2023, with a total of 7.68 million barrels of crude oil lost, representing a 79 percent drop from the previous year.
To further address these losses, the report recommended that the government consider public-private partnership arrangements to deploy advanced digital solutions and create a database for aggregating cases of resource petroleum product losses.
