.Local crude output soars by 110,000bpd

Nigeria has increased its crude oil output by about 110, 000 barrels per day, stabilising the global oil market and pushing the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) output to 27.73 million barrels per day (bpd) in September.

Nigeria and Iran in September, provided additional 120,000 barrels per day to ramp up volume, enabling OPEC to increase its output for the second time this year.

Nigeria has been battling with crude oil theft and has been producing far below budget benchmark as well as OPEC quota.

Monthly Reuters Survey, which gathered information from vessel-tracking, consultants, and sources at OPEC as well as oil firms, in the report released yesterday, showed that the increase in output balanced the voluntary cut from Saudi Arabia.

Nigeria, which has been lagging behind its quota in the OPEC+ deal, increased its oil production by 110,000 bpd in the absence of major disruptions to exports, the survey noted.

Iran, exempted from the OPEC+ cuts due to the U.S. sanctions, saw the second-largest increase in oil output within OPEC and is estimated to have pumped 3.15 million bpd in September – the highest since 2018.

With the September increase now pushing output to above 1.2 million barrels per day, Nigeria’s oil production increased to 1.18 million barrels per day (bpd) in August 2023 — up from 1.08 million barrels in July.

The increase in production in August was 100,000 bpd while that of September stands at about 110,00 to indicate that the country added about 210,000 within a space of two months. However, this is still way behind the OPEC quotas for Nigeria which was 1.742 million bpd before being reduced to about 1.38mb/d in early June due to constant low production.

While the country is already in October, crude oil output has not come close to the 2023 budget oil benchmark of 1.69 million bpd.

While Reuters data aligns with that of OPEC, the group chief executive officer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, had said Nigeria was producing 1.67 million bpd in August, inclusive of condensate.

Nigeria’s oil output (including condensate) was 1.29 million bpd in July, while the figure stood at 1.48 million bpd in June.

While the official OPEC figures for the September production will be out on October 12 in the Monthly Oil Market Report, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) of the OPEC+ group is meeting today to take stock of the oil market developments in recent weeks.
The oil had neared $100 per barrel last week amidst a cut by Saudi Arabia, which extended its extra 1 million bpd cut until the end of the year.