Nigeria’s crude revenue from India hits N175bn in May

Nigeria, which has become the top crude oil supplier to India, raked in N174.592 billion ($872.96 million) from crude exports to the latter in May, New Telegraph has learnt. This was contained in the latest export destination figures from the Monthly Petroleum Information (MPI) published by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which was obtained by our correspondent. NNPC revealed that Nigeria, which was reportedly the largest supplier of crude to India, exported an average of 440,000 barrels per day to the Asian country in May.

“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 MPI stated. Like India, Spain, South Africa, The Netherland and Brazil also emerged the top export destinations for Nigeria’s oil. Spain, according to the data, topped the list of Nigeria’s crude importers in 2014 with 10,657,756 barrels of crude oil it imported from Nigeria in December 2014, followed by India at 8,525,406 barrels, the Netherlands 8,086,981 barrels, South Africa and Brazil 6,647,436 and 4,278,037 barrels respectively. The statistics also disclosed that Saudi Arabia slipped to second position after being toppled by Nigeria.

The gulf nation was followed by Iraq while Venezuela retained the fourth slot just as 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.

This indicated an increase of about 18.1 per cent from the previous month. The MPI figure and development perhaps confirms Nigeria’s recent diversion of its crude oil market route to Spain and India, The Netherlands, South Africa and Brazil lost their long-standing market share with the United States, which for a very long time was its export destination with its preference for Nigeria’s oil. The documents showed India as the world’s fourthbiggest oil consumer. It imports about 80 per cent of its oil needs, with most of that coming from the Middle East.

However, a boom in US shale oil freed some of the supplies from Latin America and Africa for Asia, reducing the share of Middle Eastern oil in India’s overall purchases this year. The records stated that as the slide in oil prices impacted the economies of traditional oil producers, the weightage of African and Latin American crude in India’s total oil imports rose a year ago. And during a fivemonth period of January to May 2015, Nigeria was reportedly the third largest supplier of crude to India with an average of 440,000 barrels per day.