Nigeria may not be able to meet its OPEC quota in September due to rising crude oil theft which has seen Africa’s largest economy lose 20 per cent of its daily crude production to oil thieves and pipeline vandals.

This was disclosed by Wale Tinubu, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Oando Plc, at the 2022 Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) conference and exhibition on Tuesday in Abuja.

This comes as the Nigerian government revealed that Nigeria lost a staggering $1 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022.

Tinubu urged the FG and stakeholders to deploy collaborative efforts in tackling the crises, adding that the implementation of sabotage detection technology, on-ground and aerial surveillance as well as community policing, will help tame the issues.

Tinubu said: “There has been a 43% reduction in our production from March 2020 to May 2022.

“We lose almost 20% of our daily crude production to oil thieves and pipeline vandals and 20,000 barrels a day of oil is lost to oil theft.

“Basically some three million barrels on average yearly is lost to oil theft and pipeline vandalism.”

He warned that reduced oil production due to crude theft will also reduce Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product citing that “The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gave us a quota of 1.4 million barrels per day and we were struggling to do 1.21 million barrels per day.

“We will get to a quota of 1.8 million very soon because OPEC agreement expires in September. They are easing production by 400,000 barrels per day.

He warned that “We are not meeting the quota and we will not be able to meet it by that September”.