Oscarline Onwuemenyi
19 April 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja — Following the collapse of talks on production limits at Doha, Qatar, over the weekend, Nigeria is seeking a consensus among members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, on talks concerning crude oil production freeze.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, who represented the country at the ongoing OPEC meeting in Doha, Qatar, said that that despite the stalemate on the crude production freeze, the organisation would continue to work to achieve consensus among oil producers.
Kachikwu, according to a statement by the NNPC on Monday, stated that all OPEC member countries should be carried along, stressing that once everyone was brought on board, it would become easier to convince other major oil producers to sign up to the freeze policy, which was designed to remedy lingering decline in the price of crude oil in the international market.
Nigeria’s economy has been struggling due to low oil prices in the global market, and the NNPC had billed the talks in Doha on Sunday as “crucial”.
Kachikwu stressed that OPEC must aim at achieving a workable consensus on the issue by bringing everybody to the negotiation table.
“We are just going to work at it. It is a supply and demand issue, and we need to consult and bring everybody into the circle, and thank God that a committee is now in place to try and work towards getting everybody on board,” the minister stated.
According to the statement, the meeting had 18 countries in attendance, including Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico and Ecuador.
Others are Trinidad and Tobago, Iraq, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Angola, Bahrain, Indonesia, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.
