Nigeria, OPEC+ oil production slumps to 7.2m bpd daily

From Uche Usim, Abuja

A concerted effort to stabilise the global oil market has seen Nigeria’s daily oil output slump from the approved benchmark of 2.3 million barrels per day to 1.516 mbpd, representing a daily drop of 784,000 bpd.

Nigeria, along with other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies (OPEC+) on Tuesday agreed to voluntarily effect various cuts in their daily oil output aimed at realizing a total 7.2 million barrels target in January, 2021.

Between January 2020 and April 2022, the group agreed to cut almost 32 million barrels from members of total oil production capacity.

According to the deal, the voluntary cuts continue to apply till the end of the first quarter of the year in a strategic move to boost crude oil prices.

Going forward and in February precisely, OPEC+, consisting of members of OPEC and their allies in non-OPEC, are expected to cut a total of 7.125 million barrels per day, and 7.05million barrels per day in March.

Apart from Mexico, which was exempted from the decision reached at the end of the 13th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting held via videoconference since Monday, all others agreed to cut between 13,000 barrels and 1.88 million barrels of their daily production.

10 members of the OPEC, including Nigeria, known as OPEC-10, agreed to cut a total 4.564 million barrels from their total daily production of about 26.683million barrels.

Also, the non-OPEC members agreed to cut a total of 2.636 million barrels per day out of their total daily output of 17,170million barrels.

Non-OPEC led by Russia consists of countries who are not members of OPEC, but share in the vision and aspiration of a common and stable global oil market