Political transition: Traders optimistic on Nigeria’s oil exports

There were growing optimism among the traders in the international market regarding the stability of Nigeria’s crude oil exports, sequel to the peaceful political transition in the country.

Although, reports showed that the West African crude trading diverged last week, as Angolan selling and differentials versus dated Brent fared better than Nigerian grades. Traders said steady buying from Chinese and European refiners who prefer Angolan grades is helping to support the differentials and clear out the May programme, whereas Nigerian cargoes are struggling to sell.

“Angola cargoes are moving quite fast,” one trader said. “But for Nigeria, we have seen even some March cargoes unsold.” The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC’s) daily basket of twelve crudes rebounds at $54.04 a barrel on Friday, compared with $53.52 the previous day.

However, crude oil exports from Nigeria were set to reach about 1.81 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, according to traders and provisional shipping lists. The shipping schedule is slightly above the initial April export plan that included around 1.795 million bpd.

Meanwhile, it is expected that more cargoes could be added to the programme, particularly as traders said production issues with the field feeding exports of Yoho grade had delayed the issuance of any export cargoes.

The exports are preliminarily scheduled at 60 cargoes at a total of 1,808,000 million barrels per day. According to the preliminary schedule, exports of Bonny Light are set to hit just under 213,000 bpd, the highest level so far this year.

The programme showed the exports to include: Agbami with seven cargoes at 220,000 barrels per day (bpd), Amenam two cargoes at 61,000bpd, Antan one cargo at 31,000bpd, Bonga six cargoes at 184,000bpd, Bonny seven cargoes at 213,000bpd, Brass River five cargoes at 116,000bpd, EA one cargoe at 31,000bpd, Erha three cargoes at 97,000bpd, Escravos five cargoes at 153,000bpd, Forcados six cargoes at 189,000bpd, Qua Iboe twelve cargo at 368,000bpd, Usan three cargoes at 97,000bpd, Okono one cargo at 29,000bpd and Okwori one cargo at 21,000bpd.

Other programmes that are still pending includes, Yoho, Okoro, Pennington, Oyo, Olowi, and Abo. Meanwhile, the nation’s crude oil output dropped by about 64,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.89 million bpd in February 2015, from its January output of 1.96 million bpd, according to the monthly oil market report released by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Despite the drop, Nigeria maintained its position as Africa’s number one oil producer in February followed by Angola and Algeria with an output of 1.75 million bpd and 1.11 million bpd respectively.