Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV, Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed said Africa’s largest oil producer, is expected to reach its daily crude production quota in about two weeks as authorities reopen wells that had to be closed to keep criminals at bay.

According to the minister, Africa’s largest oil producer will meet its quota of producing 1.6 million barrels of crude per day (mbpd) in two weeks, despite producing 20 per cent less than capacity for months.

Despite rising oil prices as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nigeria has struggled to meet its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota of 1.73 mbpd.

This is evident from the most recent OPEC monthly oil market report (MOMR) for April 2022, the country’s oil production fell by 20,000 barrels per day (tb/d) in March to 1.24 million bpd from 1.26 million in February 2022, based on direct communication.

Furthermore, it recorded a 24000 b/d decrease in oil output to 1.35 million bpd in March, down from 1.38 million bpd the previous month, according to a secondary source.

OPEC monitors its oil output using secondary sources, but it also publishes a table of figures submitted by its member countries.

“Crude oil output increased mainly in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, while production in Libya, Nigeria and Congo declined,” the report noted.

Crude oil sales are the nation’s largest foreign-exchange earner and failure to meet production targets means Nigeria, which is also dealing with a dollar shortage, is passing up an opportunity to build its foreign reserves.

In response, Ahmed told Bloomberg, “The security authorities have been doing a lot of work, and we have seen the production numbers pick up.

“In the past month there was a time it was as low as 1.2 million barrels per day. Some of the wells that had to be shut in because of the criminality have now been opened.