MADRID: There are strong indications that India, Spain, South Africa, Netherland and Brazil may have become the top export destinations for Nigeria’s oil.
According to a latest export destination figures gleaned from the Monthly Petroleum Information (MPI) published by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Spain with 10,657,756 barrels (bbls) of crude oil it imported from Nigeria in December 2014 may still be leading the pack of countries where Nigeria has turned to for disposal of its oil.
The 2014 figures are however the most recent MPI figures uploaded by NNPC on its website. It has Nigeria’s oil export within the period to India at 8,525,406bbls, Netherlands, 8,086,981bbls, South Africa, 6,647,436bbls and Brazil, 4,278,037 respectively.
THISDAY, upon its request for any new MPI data from NNPC in Abuja was however directed to the corporation’s website by its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Ohi Alegbe on Friday, and from where the 2014 figures were obtained.
But based on recent information gleaned from sources and compiled by Thomson Reuters Oil Analytics which showed that as many refiners returned from planned maintenance, THISDAY had reported recently that tanker arrival data showed that Nigeria in the month of May replaced Saudi Arabia as the top crude oil supplier to India, up from number three a year ago.
The Reuters data also disclosed that Saudi Arabia slipped to second position after Nigeria and was followed by Iraq, then Venezuela which retained the fourth slot while Iran slipped to fifth position from seventh a year ago. India which is Iran’s biggest oil client after China, lifted an annual 66 per cent more oil from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member countries in May, shipping up to 4.34 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in May, an increase of about 18.1 per cent from the previous month.
