Nigeria’s crude-oil output increased 1.5 percent last year, according to state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.
Production rose to 780 million barrels from 768.7 million barrels a year earlier, the Lagos-based company known as NNPC said in a statement published on its website today. That’s a daily average of 2.14 million barrels compared with 2.1 barrels.
The increase in oil output was due to a “more friendly working environment” in the southern Niger River delta oil region, NNPC said.
Attacks by armed groups targeting the oil industry cut more than 28 percent of the country’s oil output between 2006 and 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The attacks decreased after thousands of militants campaigning for more local control of the delta’s energy resources accepted a government amnesty and disarmed.
Natural-gas production fell 19 percent from a year earlier to 1.84 billion standard cubic feet a day, NNPC said, without giving a reason for the decline.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and the fifth- biggest source of U.S. oil imports. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA run joint ventures with NNPC that pump most of the country’s crude.
To contact the reporter on this story: Elisha Bala-Gbogbo in Abuja at ebalagbogbo@bloomberg.net; Dulue Mbachu in Lagos at dmbachu@bloomberg.net
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