OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — If OPEC cut quota is anything to go by then, Nigeria is definitely falling short of its responsibility towards keeping the pact, as its current output is 74 thousand barrel more.
The country’s oil minister, Timipre Sylva said on Thursday, that it currently produces 1.774 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Current figure is up from the last estimate by the NNPC in November- 1.6 million-1.7 million bpd.
Nigeria’s share of the OPEC+ agreement is 1.7million barrels per day.
The Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners in December agreed to cut output by 1.7 million bpd starting from January.
Nigeria’s minister’s new production figure, 1.77m does not tally with Mr. Sylvia’s ‘improved’ compliance with the OPEC cut deal although it had OPEC’s largest production drop in December, of 80,000 bpd, and also exported less crude, according to ship-tracking data and loading schedules.
“Today Nigeria is producing according to OPEC 1.774 million bpd,” Mr. Sylva said in a statement in Abuja.
A check by SweetcrudeReports showed that Mr. Sylvia’s 1.774mb/d tallies with that stated inside OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR for January- although the figure was provided by secondary sources. While on the other hand, figure provided by primary sources claimed the country’s production for December was around 1,570million barrels per day.
Nigeria said it hopes to reach 3million barrels per day output this year- the feat may, however, be impossible if OPEC+ agree to extend cuts beyond March when the current cuts end.