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Nigeria’s recovery plan in jeopardy as OPEC dispute forces oil prices down

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OPEC

A fresh division among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has negatively affected oil at the international market.

This is as member-countries’ outputs have gone out of control of the oil cartel.

Data obtained from the Statistics department of OPEC on Saturday indicated that output for the first week of November 2016 went up to about 1.2 million barrel per day (bpd) compared to October’s 33.4m bpd, which reflected up to November.

Thus, members ignored the agreement reached on October 2016 in its special meeting in Libya, which solicited cooperation of non OPEC countries; including Russia and Brazil not to allow increases in output till its next meeting in February 2017.

Iran is blaming Saudi Arabia for the increase that has seen Brent, which sold for $45.25 per barrel in October coming down to $44.50, even as Venezuela has called for a return to status quo.

Nigeria, whose oil quality is equivalent to the Brent crude is said to have expressed disappointment that at the time the country is about resolving the Niger Delta crisis for anticipated revenue growth some member countries have resolved to frustrate it.

“The Federal Government is already taking positive steps to take the country out of the economic mess, with peace overtures extended to militants blowing up oil installations in the Niger Delta, the fall in the global oil market can frustrate the effort,” said a spokesman of NNPC.

Read also: Desperate to save manufacturing sector, CBN provides $700m lifeline

He said the next option left for the corporation is to resort to crude barter for direct capital development in a bid to fight recession.

While reports on Friday stated that investors had been skeptical that a deal to cut or freeze oil output levels would be reached at an OPEC meeting on November 30, an increasing amount of data had underscored a global skew towards oversupply.

An OPEC expert said unless the organization is able to reduce output by a million barrels per day in the next one month, price-fall would continue to be its lot.

“There is the fear that Russia may go back to its earlier plan to push up production unless there is new assurance to revert to the agreement it had with the oil cartel,” he said.
By Emma Eke….

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0 Comments

  1. Roland Uchendu Pele

    November 13, 2016 at 4:52 pm

    OPEC is not making the oil market a booming one. The division and disagreements among member states have been the major drawbacks.

    • yanju omotodun

      November 13, 2016 at 6:07 pm

      They have been one before now. They had a benchmark for oil price which no country must sell above in the international market. So what’s your point?

  2. JOHNSON PETER

    November 13, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    Nigeria’s government must less depend on crude oil as the major source of national income. We are tired of saying this on and on. Practical diversification should be made.

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