November 21, 2016/Cordros Research

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) just released Nigeria’s Q3-2016 GDP growth estimate. Real GDP growth came in at historic negative of 2.24% (the biggest since -7.59% recorded in Q1-2004), 19bps higher than Bloomberg’s compiled median estimate of 2.05%. This marks the first three consecutive negative growth since 1987 (prior to rebasing).

A quick look at the breakdown of the GDP figure shows that the oil sector recorded a negative growth of 22.01% (from -17.48% in Q2-2016 and 1.13% in Q3-2015). Over the three months period, output from the oil sector was negatively affected by the record fall in domestic production as a result of several militants’ attacks on crude oil & gas facilities. The NBS estimated crude oil production during the three months period to be 1.63mbpd, compared to 2.17mbpd in Q3-2015.

Non-oil sector, on the other hand, exited recession, growing by a marginal 0.03% (from -0.38% in Q2-2016 and a growth of 3.05% in Q3-2015).

Overall, the significant contraction in the oil sector GDP (the biggest within available CBN data) largely accounted for the -2.24% national output growth.

A quick look at the breakdown of the biggest components of the GDP shows that agriculture grew by 4.54% y/y (vs. 4.53% y/y in Q2-2016), manufacturing contracted by 4.38% y/y (vs. -3.36% y/y in Q2-2016), while trade declined by 1.38% y/y (vs. -0.03% y/y).