Nigeria’s total crude oil export revenues hit N73 trillion in the 21 months spanning January 2023 to September 2024, THISDAY’s analysis of data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the period has shown.
The period also saw a significant rise of export of the commodity by about 200 per cent from a meagre value of just over N5 trillion in the first quarter of 2023 to over N15 trillion in the first quarter of 2024.
With capacity to raise production to 2 million barrels per day by just reopening inactive wells and blocking oil thieves from siphoning the country’s commonwealth, Nigeria has since 2020 struggled to hit its output target.
But despite the massive increase in revenues from crude oil export, THISDAY’s checks indicated that rather than slow down government borrowing, loans taken by the federal government have indeed soared in the months under consideration.
A review of the ‘Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics’ of the NBS for the seven quarters during the period January 2023 to September 2024, implied that in the first quarter of 2023, Nigeria exported a miserly N5.148 trillion worth of crude oil, which was even the largest export value for the period.
