Bonny Light, Nigeria’s most popular light crude oil, saw its price increase to $100 per barrel yesterday, up from $98 per barrel on Monday, as a result of increased speculation prompted by the European Union’s embargo on Russian oil.
Oil prices hit a peak not seen since the first quarter of 2022, and they are currently $30 per barrel above the $70 per barrel benchmark used in the 2023 budget, which was also predicated on a daily output of 1.69 million barrels.
Nigeria stands to gain from the present oil market position, but analysts predict the country may experience an output shortage as a result of increasing pipeline vandalism, oil theft, and illicit refining in the Niger Delta.
Research indicated that in September 2022, the country’s oil output dropped by 24.73 percent, to 937,766 barrels per day, from the 1.246 barrels per day recorded in the comparable month in 2021.
Data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, shows that the country’s daily output of petroleum and condensate dropped to 1.137 million bpd in September 2022 from 1.179 million barrels in August 2022.
