Nigeria surpasses Angola in production output

Nigeria has finally overtaken Angola as the top oil and gas producer in Africa with an increased out put of 170,000 barrels per day (bpd) in October.

Angola, which is Nigeria’s rival in terms of crude oil production, surpassed Nigeria with over 200,000 bpd due to the renewed militancy in the Niger Delta, which led to drastic drop in the country’s output.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which made this disclosure in its November Oil Market Report released last week, said “according to secondary sources, OPEC crude oil production in October increased by 0.24 million mbpd compared to the previous month to average 33.64 mbpd. Crude oil output increased the most in Nigeria, Libya and Iraq, while production in Angola showed the largest decline,” it added.

Nigeria’s crude oil production, which recorded almost two million barrels per day in 2015, decreased to 1.785mpd in first quarter of 2016; 1.547mpd in second quarter and 1.437 in third quarter.

OPEC disclosed that global oil inventories have grown rapidly since oil prices began to fall in the middle of 2014.

The steady decline in prices, it noted, came as total oil production outpaced world oil demand. “Lower prices and the wide contango structure of the market have provided the financial incentive to place large volumes of oil in storage.

“This has led to an increase in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) commercial inventories by more than 400 mb since the end of second quarter of 2014, along with an estimated build of 240 mb in non-OECD inventories. In addition, floating storage has also seen a gain of 50 mb over the same period.

“Altogether, OECD total commercial stocks saw a slowing build in the first three quarters of this year, increasing by 67 mb compared to a build of 248 mb over the same period last year. The slowdown in the build of OECD oil inventories can also be seen in the declining trend of the difference with the latest five-year average,” it added.

It added that for 2017, growth is expected to be around 1.15 mbpd, unchanged from the previous report at 95.55 mbpd.

It stated that demand for OPEC crude in 2016 is estimated to stand at 31.9 mbpd, a gain of 1.9 mbpd over last year’s. In 2017, demand for OPEC crude is forecast at 32.7 mbpd, an increase of 0.8 mbpd over the current year.

OPEC stated: “World oil demand growth is expected to increase by 1.23 mbpd in 2016 to average 94.40 mbpd.