Business
Oil Production Drops To 1.2m bpd In August – DPR
Crude oil production in Nigeria dropped to 1.23 million barrels per day in August, report from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has revealed.
The 2021 crude oil and condensate production report from the DPR, which was made available to newsmen last Friday, showed oil production between January and August.
In the report, Nigeria’s crude fell from an average of 1.36 million barrels per day in January to 1.23 million b/d in August, representing a nine percent decline.
“For month-to-month, production of crude and condensate in August fell by 6.7 percent from 1.64 million b/d in July.
“By implication, the development would affect the nation’s crude exports and foreign earnings as Brent crude stood at $71 per barrel last Thursday.
“In August, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria declared force majeure on Forcados crude oil.
“Forcados pipeline which exports an average of 240,000 barrels of crude oil daily is one of Nigeria’s main crude oil terminals”, the report explained.
According to the DPR report, crude oil production at Forcados terminal dropped consecutively since June which slumped from 5.7 million barrels in July to an average of 2 million barrels in August.
With the decline in oil production, Nigeria falls below the production cap under the OPEC+ deal at 1.596 million b/d for the month under review.
Director, DPR, Sarki Auwalu, had last Thursday, said optimisation of Nigeria’s oil production processes is crucial in the nation’s economic recovery drive.
Auwalu identified five pillars to its strategy for Maximum Economic Recovery (MER) for the industry, stressing that the objective of the strategy was to maximise the expected net value of economically recoverable petroleum from Nigeria’s acreages.
He listed items in the strategy to include reserves maturation, production optimisation, exploration and resources maturation, improved oil recovery and enhanced oil recovery implementation in the industry.
By: Corlins Walter
Business
Agency Gives Insight Into Its Inspection, Monitoring Operations
Business
BVN Enrolments Rise 6% To 67.8m In 2025 — NIBSS
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said that Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolments rose by 6.8 per cent year-on-year to 67.8 million as at December 2025, up from 63.5 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
In a statement published on its website, NIBSS attributed the growth to stronger policy enforcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the expansion of diaspora enrolment initiatives.
NIBSS noted that the expansion reinforces the BVN system’s central role in Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive and digital identity framework.
Another major driver, the statement said, was the rollout of the Non-Resident Bank Verification Number (NRBVN) initiative, which allows Nigerians in the diaspora to obtain a BVN remotely without physical presence in the country.
A five-year analysis by NIBSS showed consistent growth in BVN enrolments, rising from 51.9 million in 2021 to 56.0 million in 2022, 60.1 million in 2023, 63.5 million in 2024 and 67.8 million by December 2025. The steady increase reflects stronger compliance with biometric identity requirements and improved coverage of the national banking identity system.
However, NIBSS noted that BVN enrolments still lag the total number of active bank accounts, which exceeded 320 million as of March 2025.
The gap, it explained, is largely due to multiple bank accounts linked to single BVNs, as well as customers yet to complete enrolment, despite the progress recorded.
