Nigeria cuts oil export to meet OPEC deal

Nigeria has reviewed its oil export programmes for May and June downward in conformity with a global production cut agreement led by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), according to loading programmes obtained by Reuters.

OPEC and its Russia-led allies consented to reduce their combined production by 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) or 23% each in May and June from an agreed minimum.

The deal was agreed earlier in April to boost prices as demand by as much as one third on the account of lockdowns around the world targeted at containing the spread of COVID-19.

“The emergence of Nigeria’s June loading programmes was severely delayed due to wrangling between producers and state firm NNPC on how cuts should be implemented,” Reuters said.

The grades run by Exxon Mobil were the first to emerge showing some deep cuts.

Read also: MTNN’s profit rises to N51.15bn at Q1 as revenue leaps by 16.7%

The schedules for major grades issued by Royal Dutch Shell are still missing.

Exxon operates Qua Iboe, one of Nigeria’s key oil grades, whose planned exports for June has been cut to 95,000 bpd relative to an original May programme of 215,000 bpd.

Similarly, two May cargoes of Qua Iboe have been postponed to June.

Exxon also runs smaller offshore fields in the country including Usan, Erha and Yoho.

May cargoes for the three grades have been rolled into June with only Yoho having a dedicated June programme of a 350,000 barrel cargo.

Chevron’s Nigerian grade, Agbami, will load lower cargoes in June at four cargoes versus five cargoes in the preceding two months. A May cargo has been deferred to June.

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