Nigeria’s crude oil production hit a record high of 2.7 million barrels per day on Wednesday, the state-run oil company said on Thursday.
The results come despite ministers and oil companies saying recently that oil theft had caused output to fall.
“I am glad to report to you that in crude oil production, yesterday, we recorded an all time high of 2.7 million barrels. This has not been recorded before,” Andrew Yakubu, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC), said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Nigeria is a member of the oil producing group Opec, which has set the West African country a crude oil output limit of 1.67 million bpd.
Nigeria’s oil and finance ministers and the central bank governor have said in recent weeks that rapidly rising oil theft and the damage it causes to infrastructure is significantly cutting oil output.
Shell and the Nigerian government estimate somewhere between 150,000 and 180,000 bpd is being stolen, while an unknown amount is deferred due to pipeline sabotage.
Loading schedules showed Africa’s top oil producer was set to export 1.81 million bpd in September, its lowest in 11 months.
