Crude oil reserves in Nigeria have dropped by 4.79 percent to 31.81 billion barrels over the past year because companies refuse to undertake exploration, a senior industry official said Wednesday.

"The country's oil reserves dropped by 1.6 billion barrels (4.79 percent), condensate reserves increased by 0.152 billion barrels (2.92 percent," said the director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Wada Andrew Obaje.

Oil reserves are the amount of commercially recoverable crude oil, while condensate reserves are the amount of recoverable light hydrocarbons.

Local media quoted Obaje as saying that oil reserves in Nigeria, the world's eighth largest exporter, "currently stand at 31.81 billion barrels and condensate reserves at 5.35 billion barrels."

Obaje put total oil and condensate reserves at 37.16 billion barrels.

Nigeria had aimed to build a reserve base of 40 billion barrels by 2010.

The DPR chief blamed the drop in oil reserves on oil companies' refusal to undertake exploration and full field studies that would lead to new reserves.

Industry sources said the drop was also down to a spate of militant attacks that hit operations in the country's oil-producing Niger Delta over the past three-and-a-half years until a recent truce.

Since 2006, armed groups fighting for a greater share of Niger Delta oil revenue frequently launched attacks on installations and kidnapped oil workers, but a government amnesty saw such attacks all but ended since late 2009.

Nigeria's daily oil output has also risen to more than two million barrels as against around one million at the peak of the unrest.

Story from AFP
AFP 07/28/2010 13:12