With a cost of oil production of $28.99 per barrel, Nigeria is now the world’s third most expensive country to produce oil in. The African country stands behind UK and Brazil, that produce a barrel of oil at $44.33 and $34.99 respectively, All Africa reported, citing a Wall Street Journal survey.

The same survey said that production in Nigeria was more expensive than it is in the US despite the fact that the US use expensive technology which combines horizontal drilling and a technique known as hydraulic fracturing to mine its shale oil, The Cable informed.

A further breakdown of the cost shows that oil producers in Nigeria pay $4.11 as taxes on a barrel of oil they produce, while $13.10, $8.81 and $2.97 go into capital spending, production costs, as well as administration or transportation cost, respectively.

On the other hand, import destination report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has earlier shown that the US imported 6.8m barrels of oil from Nigeria between January and March this year, with almost 950,000 barrels in January, about 1,940,000 in February and slightly over 3,970,000 in March.