The Nigerian Government has lamented the rise in crude oil theft which has affected its crude oil production so far this year and says it is committed to meeting its quota by August.
This was disclosed by Nigeria’s Minister of state for petroleum, Timipre Sylva at a conference on Friday.
He also added that OPEC+ major members cannot also meet the new capacity required to pump more and tame oil prices.
What the minister is saying
“For us in Nigeria we are at a low point. We are not able to meet our OPEC quota,” Oil Minister Timipre Sylva told a media conference, but added that he expects Nigeria to do so soon.
“We have given ourselves just about a month to ensure that we can. We believe that by August we would see some improvement in security.
“At this moment, I think prices are firm enough and I don’t think there will be any surprise in August. We believe that the market is well supplied.
“Of course some people consider price to be on the high side and expect us to pump more. At this moment there is little capacity that can be brought to the market,” he added.
On OPEC+ meeting capacity to increase production, he warned that oil producers are running out of capacity to pump more crude.
“Some people believe the prices to be a little bit on the high side and expect us to pump a little bit more but at this moment there is really little additional capacity.
“Even Saudi Arabia, Russia, of course Russia, is out of the market now more or less,” he said.
He added that he thinks the prices are firming up and there will be no surprises in OPEC in August
What you should know
- Recall Nairametrics reported that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) increased Nigeria’s crude oil production quota from 1.766 million barrels a day in June to 1.799 million barrels per day for the month of July.
- This comes after a Reuters survey disclosed that Nigeria’s crude oil production witnessed increasing production levels in the month of May after multiple laggard months, rising by 70,000 barrels per day and averaging 1.42 million bpd in May.
