OpeOluwani Akintayo
12 May 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Nigeria’s crude oil production, plus condensates, reached a record high of 2.07 million barrels per day in April.
According to statistics obtained from Platts by SweetcrudeReports, the increase to 2.07mbpd in April, was from 2.02 million bpd recorded in March, rising by 11 percent from April 2017.
The country’s production has been on a gradual rise since militants in the Niger Delta halted hostilities in early 2017.
However, oil and condensate output fell in March due to illegal tapping of pipelines in the oil-producing region.
A spokesman for the oil ministry told Platts that Nigeria is now on track to achieve its oil and condensate production target of 2.3 million b/d, set as an assumption in the 2018 budget.
According to statistics obtained from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC’s latest Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR, Nigeria’s production is still around 1.7m b/d according to data from direct sources.
However, secondary sources say the country’s production is already above 1.8m b/d.
The country which has been exempted twice from the OPEC cuts will join in the programme once oil production, minus condensates reach 1.8m b/d.
Libya and Nigeria agreed to stick to an unofficial collective cap of 2.8 million b/d of crude oil production, reflecting the presumed sustained production capacities of 1 million b/d for Libya and 1.80 million b/d for Nigeria.
According to the monthly survey of one of those secondary sources, S&P Global Platts, Nigerian crude oil production dropped by 40,000 b/d in April compared to March, due to an outage of the Trans Forcados Pipeline that affected exports of its Forcados grade. Platts sources say that Nigeria’s crude oil production is likely to drop again in May because the Qua Iboe grade may be shut in for scheduled maintenance.
The Platts survey found that Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1.88m b/d in April from 1.92 million b/d in March.
OPEC will release on Monday, May 14, the next oil market report with data for April, and OPEC uses the secondary source to measure compliance with the deal.
