Nigeria edges Angola, reclaims Africa’s topmost spot

Stories by Patrick Andrew
with agencies

Nigeria produced 94,000 barrels of crude oil per day even before hitting the 2017 projected 2.2 million barrels daily production to edge Angola at the top of Africa’s leading oil producers.
Angola claimed first position as Africa’s top oil producer in March 2016, last year following renewed and intensive bombings of oil pipeline by Niger Delta Avengers that led to drastic reduction in the total output from Nigeria.

But the December 2016 Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), indicated that crude oil production from Nigeria rose slightly above that of Angola.
Though both Nigeria and Angola produced 1.692 million barrels of oil respectively in November, the latest edition of the report issued by OPEC’s Secretariat, noted that the figures based on direct communication put Nigeria ahead by 94,000 bopd at 1.782 million bopd.
These figures were before the January 2017 production cut agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers came into effect.
Already, Sonangol over the weekend said it had reduced output by 78,000 bopd in an effort to comply with the deal, meaning that Angola may have complied with her expected production cut to about 78,000 barrels per day.

“According to secondary sources, OPEC crude oil production in November increased by 151tb/d compared to the previous month to average 33.87mb/d.
“Crude oil output increased the most in Angola, Nigeria and Libya, while production in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia showed the largest decline.
“A new OPEC-14 production target of 32.5mb/d as per 1 January 2017 represents a reduction of around 1.2mb/d from October production levels,” said OPEC’s December MOMR.
Nigeria, which based its 2017 budget on a benchmark of $42.5 per barrel of oil, lost its position as Africa’s largest producer in March 2016, when its output fell to about 1.677mb, as against Angola’s 1.782mb then.
This year though, following series of peace negotiations and the heavy presence of military operatives, the federal government is projecting a production quota of 2.2 million barrels of oil per day.

Should Nigeria sustains the projected production level, and Angola retains her less 78,000 barrels per day, then Nigeria would remain in the top spot as Africa’s number one oil producer.
Though Nigeria is still far from recovering its peak production capacity as sporadic bombings continues even as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) plans to set in motion peace negotiation machinery different from the military option, she remains optimistic of meeting her production projection.
Further, Nigeria, who together with Saudi Arabia and Russia, among other leading OPEC and Non-OPEC members sealed the production cut deal, hopes that the production cap exemption from the rest of OPEC and non-OPEC members on the basis of the attacks on her oil infrastructure would work in her favour.