*Deficit exceeds 700,000bpd despite assurances of increased drilling The expectation that Nigeria’s current dollar crunch could subside soon has again been dashed as the country’s crude oil production remained below expectation, slumping to 1.083 million barrels per day in July. July’s production figure, sourced from the data released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), followed the trend in the country’s abysmally low drilling capacity in at least the last 10 months. For the month under review, however, the country’s production allocation by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was roughly 1.8 million (1.799) barrels per day. This means that Nigeria could not produce as much as 717,000 bpd or 22.22 million barrels during July. When valued at a conservative price of $110 per barrel, the 22.22 million barrels were about $2.444 billion for the month. While the rest of the oil-producing world […]