OpeOluwani Akintayo
01 June 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Findings by SweetcrudeReport on Thursday shows that the price of Nigeria’s crude oil grade, Bonny Light, increased by $5.70 between March and April this year.
According to statistics from the newly-released OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR, for May released on Monday, Bonny Light climbed from $67.05 in March to $72.75 in April, making it an 8.5 percent increase in price.
The price increase was mainly due to the production cut by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, and its partners.
Bonny Light sold for $53.75 in 2017, and $68.98 earlier this year.
The OPEC cuts which saw cutbacks of 1.8 million barrels per day of output, achieved a 149 percent commitment in April, according to statistics by the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria.
According to OPEC, global oil glut is almost eliminated, further supporting prices while producers were cutting more than required under the deal.
According to the report, oil inventories in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, industrialised nations in March fell to 9 million barrels above the five-year average, down from 340 million barrels above the average in January 2017.
“The oil market was underpinned in April by renewed geopolitical issues, tightening product inventories and robust global demand,” OPEC said in its report.
The main goal of the production cut deal was to reduce excess oil stocks to the five-year average.
However, despite extending the cuts twice, OPEC and its partners have shown further commitment to proceed with the Declaration of Cooperation, DoC, into 2019.
OPEC output rose by just 12,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 31.93 million bpd in April, according to figures OPEC collects from secondary sources. That is roughly 800,000 bpd less than the amount OPEC says the world needs from the group this year.
Figures reported directly from OPEC members showed even deeper declines in production.
Venezuela, whose output has plunged due to an economic crisis, told OPEC its production fell to 1.505 million bpd in April, believed to be the lowest in decades.
Top exporter Saudi Arabia said it cut output by 39,000 bpd to 9.868 million bpd, which is the lowest since the cut deal began, based on figures Riyadh reports to the group.
