Nigeria optimistic of increased oil output

Nigeria hopes to increase its present 1.27 million barrels per day crude oil output before the end of the second quarter. Th is was disclosed by the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe kachukwu in a recent oil event in Abuja. According to him, Nigeria will revive oil production as it completes maintenance and repairs of some of the major pipelines current undergoing maintenance.

Also, the Africa’s second largest oil producer expects fellow OPEC members to continue to cut their output in the second half of the year. Kachukwu said Nigeria is working hard to complete the repairs on the Forcados pipeline by June.

Th e pipelines it would be recalled were allegedly destroyed by members of Niger Delta New Avengers. Further, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which is currently carrying out the repair works in most of the pipelines hopes to complete maintenance at the Bonga oilfi eld in July. Kachikwu, who was speaking in a Bloomberg Television interview monitored in Abuja, said Nigeria hopes to return to full stream crude oil production as attacks on oil installations have subsided.

He said that Nigeria’s output slumped to 1.27 million barrels a day last March, the lowest in decades, but remains optimistic that the targeted 2.2 million barrels per before the close of the fourth quarter would be reached. Nigeria had been exempt from output cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) due to incessant attacks from Niger Delta militants. Nigeria would continue to enjoy quota and sustain the measure until it fully restores output it’s lost, which could happen as early as October or November.

Meanwhile keen watchers of OPEC expect the counterparts to extend the cuts to keep oil prices above $50 a barrel, a development that was confi rmed by Kachikwu.

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