Nigeria earned N80 trillion from petroleum export under Buhari

By Philip Clement, Abuja

Nigeria earned about N80 trillion from petroleum exports from 2015 to 2019, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said.

Nigeria is regarded as the largest oil exporter in Africa, and have recorded a revenue valued at N80 trillion ($206.06billion) as proceeds from crude oil export from 2015 to 2019,

This translates to the revenue earned since the coming on board of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The OPEC stated this in a breakdown which is contained in its 2020 Annual Statistical Bulletin published on its website at www.opec.org.

According to the publication, Nigeria’s oil export revenue fell in 2016 to $27.29billion from $41.17billion in 2015, which was the rationale behind the country slipping into recession.

Oil revenue later improved in 2017 to $37.98 billion and by the time Nigeria’s economy came out of recession in 2018, the revenue jumped to $54.51billion.

Although the revenue fell to $45.11billion in 2019, Nigeria was the fifth biggest revenue-earner in OPEC for the same year.

The four bigger earners ahead of Nigeria are Saudi Arabia ($202.37billion), Iraq ($80.03billion), Kuwait ($52.43billin) and the United Arab Emirates ($49.64billion).

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The country also imported $265 billion worth of petroleum products.

Nigeria exports its crude oil to Europe, North America, Asia and Pacific, Latin America, Africa and Middle-East.

In 2019, the country’s export to Europe reduced to 680,600 barrels per day from 1.06 million bpd in 2018. Also export to North America fell to 27,500 bpd from 172,000 bpd.

However, export to Asia and the Pacific rose from 387.200bpd in 2018 to 664.900bpd in 2019. Also, Nigerian oil export to Latin America increased from 52.300 bpd in 2018 to 252.200 bpd last year.

Exports to Africa fell from 309.500 in 2018 to 260.700 in 2019. No export was recorded for Middle East in 2018 but 122.300bpd was exported in 2019.

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 260,700bpd.

However, in the recently signed revised budget for 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari, the federal government has projected a 65% drop in revenue mainly from oil proceeds.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning also stated that the country will produce between 1.4 to 1.5 million barrels per day in compliance with the OPEC oil production cuts.

The situation has necessitated predictions by experts which stated that the country may slip into another recession in 4 years owing to the fact that Nigeria’s revenue is cheaply driven by oil.