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 per day.
Angola’s production fell from 1.183 million barrels per 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, two types of production data 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 Lusophone country has overtaken the largest African economy, but taking into account the data calculated by OPEC based on these secondary sources, then Nigeria maintains the lead among the largest oil producers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The data based on secondary sources show that Nigeria, despite having had a reduction in production of about 45,000 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 per day, is in line with the estimate presented recently by the finance minister, who revised the economic growth forecast to 2.7% of GDP this year.
“We’ve revised our gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for this year to 2.7 percent, assuming the same pace of 1.14 million barrels of oil per day and a price around $100,” Vera Daves de Sousa said at a Bloomberg conference about a month ago, with the barrel’s value having risen since then, to be around $120 this week.
In an analysis of the evolution of oil production in Angola at the end of May, the Oxford Economics consultancy estimated that the country could reach an average of 1.18 million barrels per day.
“We forecast oil production to rise to 1.18 million barrels per day in 2022, but the balance of risks is unbalanced to the downside due to the possibility of further technical problems and delays in implementing new projects,” write the Oxford Economics Africa analysts, adding that “cumulative 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”.
