Oscarline Onwuemenyi
27 September 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, says Nigeria’ crude oil production was being hampered by infrastructural problems.
He said no oil export streams in Nigeria remained under force majeure but infrastructure problems were preventing production exceeding 1.8 million barrels per day, mb/d.
Nigeria is currently pumping less than 1.8 million barrels per day of crude, the minister said, meaning the country is sticking to an output cap agreed under an OPEC-led deal to limit output.
“At lot of it (production limitation) is infrastructure,” he said, adding that “A lot of damage happened during the years of militancy.”
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, and other producers, including Russia, are reducing crude output until next March in an attempt to support prices by cutting a glut of crude on world markets.
Nigeria was at first exempted from the deal because its output was limited by unrest in the oil-producing Delta region. But, with production recovering, OPEC ministers agreed in July Nigeria would cap output at 1.8 million b/d.
“The average is about 1.69 million b/d and it is getting better by the day,” Kachikwu told reporters in Vienna, Austria, at last week’s meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC ministers to review the deal.