Nigeria revenue accruals from export of crude oil to the international market has grown to an estimated $26 billion from January to July 2018.

The country’s total oil export revenue peaked at about $34 billion in 2017, representing a rise by 30 percent from the $26 billion earned in the preceding year.

According to the new OPEC Revenues Fact Sheet released by the Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, Nigeria recorded the sixth biggest revenue in the 15-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the lowest per capital oil revenue last year.

The report indicated that, Angola, which earned an estimated $31 billion in 2017 earned $21bn in the first seven months of this year, and had a per capital oil revenue of $532.

The global oil benchmark, Brent crude, against which Nigeria’s oil is priced, rose to $66.87 per barrel at the end of 2017 from around $53 per barrel at the start of the year.

The rally in the global oil prices continued in 2018, with Brent climbing above $80 per barrel on May 17 for the first time since November 2014. It, however, exchange at $74.29 per barrel as of 4:00 pm Nigerian time on Wednesday.

The US EIA estimated that members of the OPEC earned about $567 billion in net oil export revenues (unadjusted for inflation) in 2017, indicating 29 percent increase from the $441 billion earned in 2016.

The improved earnings were attributed mainly to the increase in average annual crude oil prices during the year and the increase in OPEC net oil exports.

Overall, the latest Fact Sheet report showed that Saudi Arabia accounted for the largest share of total $167 billion OPEC earnings in 2017, representing nearly one-third of total OPEC oil revenues.

The report stated further: “EIA expects that OPEC net oil export revenues will rise to about $736 billion (unadjusted for inflation) in 2018, based on forecasts of global oil prices and OPEC production levels in EIA’s August 2018 Short-Term Energy Outlook.”

Commenting on the report, the statistical arm of the US Department of Energy, stated: “On a per capita basis, OPEC net oil export earnings are expected to increase by 27 per cent, from $1,147 in 2017 to $1,459 in 2018.

“The expected increase in OPEC’s net export earnings is attributed to higher forecast annual crude oil prices in 2018 compared with 2017 despite expected lower output during 2018.”

Meanwhile, the EIA’s August 2018 STEO forecasts that OPEC crude oil production would average 32.3 million barrels per day this year, representing about 0.3 million bpd lower than the volume produced last year.

This is even as it predicted that for 2019, OPEC revenues were expected to be $719 billion, attributing the projected marginal drop in revenues to lower forecast crude oil prices, slightly lower OPEC production and exports.