Nigeria has recorded an increase in the exportation of crude oil from January to September 2018, which is worth about N11.49 trillion compared to N7.77 trillion recorded in the comparative period in 2017.
This shows an increase of N2.37 trillion over N9.12 trillion budgeted for 2018 and about N2.67 trillion than the proposed N8.82 trillion for the 2019 budget.
Information from the National Bureau of statics (NBS) Foreign Trade Statistics for Q3 2018 show that the exportation of crude oil in the third quarter of 2018 was N4.146 trillion, which is an increase of 9.11% over Q2 2018 amount of N3.76 trillion, a 13.68% increase over N3.57 trillion in Q1 2018, and 21.5% increase over N3.25 trillion in Q4 2017.
In addition to that, the NBS report revealed that the top 5 countries Nigeria exported crude oil to include India (N719.16 billion), Spain (N463.08 billion), France (N422.52 billion), South Africa (N334.98 billion), and Netherlands (N260.73 billion).
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), also around August 2018 said Nigerian earned about $26 billion in the first seven months of 2018 from the exportation of crude oil.
The stagnancy the industry faced in the second quarter of 2018 was as a result of Nigeria’s crude oil exports under pressure because the United States flooded Europe market with a large volume of crude oil. The Brent, against which Nigeria’s oil is priced, rose by $0.37 to $74.43 per barrel within this period as compared to around $66 at the start of the year.
The relatively high prices brought about by a pact in OPEC in cutting output jointly by 1.8 million barrels per day, coupled with the surging US output, made it harder to sell Russian, Nigerian and other oil grades in Europe.
