OPEC’s December Production Jumped As Nigeria Accounts For Major Increase

The most current Monthly Oil Market Report released on Tuesday indicates that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries increased its output in December.

According to the MOMR, Nigeria accounted for nearly all of the increase in OPEC-13's average daily output in December, which increased by 91,000 barrels to 28.971 million bpd.

Nigeria's crude oil output increased in December by 91,000 barrels per day (bpd), reaching 1.267 million bpd.

Production also increased in Angola (+42,000 bpd), Iran (+9,000 bpd), Libya (+17,000 bpd), Saudi Arabia (+4,000 bpd), and Venezuela (+13,000 bpd).

As Chevron's permission to ship curde oil to the United States for use in its or other refineries was expanded, Venezuela's production increased.

Kuwait's production of crude oil dropped significantly by 35,000 bpd. Other countries that suffered losses included Algeria (-11,000 bpd), Congo (-18,000 bpd), Equatorial Guinea (-1,000 bpd), Gabon (-6,000 bpd), Iraq (-4,000 bpd), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (-9,000 bpd).

The output of Saudi Arabia decreased by 32,000 bpd to 10.435 million bpd in December 2022, according to straight reported numbers, despite an increase in production based on secondary sources to 10.478 million bpd.

Nigeria's directly reported production growth increased by just 50,000 bpd to 1.235 million bpd, which was less than secondary source reporting.

The MOMR reports that OPEC's percentage of the world's crude oil production "remained steady at 28.5% in December, compared to the prior month."

According to a Reuters survey from early January, the OPEC-13's December production increased to 29 million bpd from 28 million bpd.

A study by Bloomberg stated that the company's production rose by a whopping 150,000 bpd.

The OPEC-10's production in December was more than 800,000 barrels per day below the production target, which is still a significant shortfall.

Nigeria remains the greatest laggard in the group after remarkable production advances in December.