Angola will overtake Nigeria as the region’s top oil producer from around 2016, an International Energy Agency (IEA) report revealed
Currently, Nigeria is the continent’s largest oil producer and the shift will be due to an expected increase in production in Angola, IEA added. Angola’s oil production, at present, stands at 1.6mn bpd and the country expects to hit two million bpd by 2015, according to Angolan oil minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos.
The agency has estimated that Nigeria is losing 150,000 bpd to oil theft, the equivalent of US$5bn a year. Also regulatory uncertainty, the result of a seemingly-permanently stalled Petroleum Industry Bill in the country, has led to delays in investment decisions.
Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist, said, “What will put Nigeria second are uncertainty over the Nigerian investment framework, oil theft and governance issues.”
