Nigeria’s crude oil production slightly declined to 1.422 million barrels per day (mbp/d) in December 2025 from 1.436 million mbp/d in November, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has reported.
The oil cartel’s latest ‘Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR)’ released on Wednesday showed that the country had missed its OPEC-assigned production quota for the fifth consecutive month, despite ongoing reforms by the government to boost the upstream sector’s output.
According to OPEC data on member-countries’ oil production levels over the past year, Nigeria last met its OPEC production quota in July 2025, with output remaining below target from August through December.
The quarterly figures showed that in first quarter of the year, Nigeria’s crude oil production stood at 1.468 million bpd while the second quarter output marginally rose 1.481million bpd. In Q3, 2025 the production declined to 1.444mbpd and dropped further to 1.42million bpd in the last quarter of the year.
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The oil cartel compiles production data using two approaches, namely the direct communication from member countries; and estimates from secondary sources such as independent energy intelligence agencies.
While Nigeria’s output declined based on direct communication data, secondary sources cited by OPEC presented a more optimistic production data for the country.
According to the secondary estimates, Nigeria produced 1.5 million bpd in December, a 1.35% increase from the 1.48 million bpd recorded in November.
Despite the declining crude oil production by the country over the past quarters, the OPEC data still reflected that Nigeria maintained its position as Africa’s largest oil producer, ahead of Libya, which produced 1.37 million bpd during the same period.
Meanwhile, at the broader OPEC level, crude oil production by countries participating in the Declaration of Cooperation (DoC) based on secondary source data averaged 42.83 million bpd in December 2025, reflecting a month-on-month decline of 238,000 bpd.
