Angola overtook Nigeria as the largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa in May, according to data from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), by pumping 1.1 million barrels a day.
Angola’s production fell from 1.183 million barrels a day pumped in April to 1.162 million in May, but benefited from an even greater drop by Nigeria, whose production fell from 1.219 million barrels in April to 1.024 million the following month, thus losing the leadership of the largest producers in sub-Saharan Africa.
In OPEC’s monthly report, consulted this Wednesday by Lusa, two types of data on production are presented: on the one hand, OPEC calculates production for export based on secondary sources, but it also presents data that are made available by the producing countries themselves.
According to the figures sent by the authorities of Angola and Nigeria, the country has surpassed the largest African economy, but taking into account the data calculated by OPEC based on these secondary sources, then Nigeria maintains the leadership among the largest oil producers in the Sub-Saharan Africa.
Data based on secondary sources show that Nigeria, despite having had a reduction in production of about 45 thousand barrels per day, pumped 1.306 million barrels of oil per day in April, and 1.262 million in May, above the 1.176 million barrels produced in Angola, which practically maintained production between April and May.
In May, the 13 OPEC countries produced, according to the organization’s secondary sources, an average of 28.5 million barrels a day, which is about 176,000 barrels a day less than in April.
Angola’s production, at around 1.1 million barrels a day, is in line with the estimate recently presented by the finance minister, who revised the forecast for economic growth to 2.7 percent of GDP this year.
“We have revised the growth forecast for the Gross Domestic Product [GDP] for this year to 2.7 percent, considering the same pace of 1.14 million barrels of oil per day and a price of around 100 dollars”, said Vera Daves de Sousa at a Bloomberg conference, about a month ago, and the value of the barrel has risen since then, being around 120 dollars this week.
In an analysis of the evolution of oil production in Angola, at the end of May, the consultancy Oxford Economics estimated that the country could reach an average of 1.18 million barrels a day.
“We expect oil production to rise to 1.18 million barrels per day in 2022, but the balance of risks is skewed to the downside due to the possibility of further technical issues and delays in the implementation of new projects,” the analysts write. from Oxford Economics Africa, adding that “accumulated production in the first four months of 2022 rose 1.8 percent from the same period last year, but oil revenues rose 87 percent mainly due to higher global oil prices “.
