Page 10 - AfrOil Week 05 2023

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

It wants these firms to resume work and play a resume upstream work in the country. The war-
bigger role in raising production and exports. torn country is also trying to overcome heavy
Libya is also working to attract foreign oil political barriers, attract funding and upgrade
companies to explore offshore gas and oil and its ageing infrastructure. ™

OPEC output falls as Nigeria

again fails to meet quota

NIGERIA NIGERIA’S slumping oil sector has been a sig- to shut in production, crippled the country’s
nificant contributing factor in OPEC’s falling finances and knocked the country off its posi-
output in January, a recent Reuters survey has tion as Africa’s top oil producer.
revealed. In recent months, the government has
The survey showed that OPEC’s production worked hard to fight against the gangs stealing
came to 28.87mn barrels per day (bpd) in Janu- oil, and has charged Nigeria’s Joint Task Force
ary, down by 50,000 bpd from December. with fighting illegal oil refining. On January 26,
Nigeria’s output held at similar levels in Jan- Defence Media Operations Director Musa Dan-
uary as seen in December, leaving more work to madami revealed that the operation has, thus
be done to meet its target of lifting yields to 1.6 far, successfully destroyed 39 illegal oil refin-
million bpd this quarter. ing sites, siezing 274,000 litres of crude oil and
While many OPEC members have agreed to 71,000 litres of Automotive Gas Oil. ™
reduce their oil output as part of an agreement
to support the worldwide price of the commod-
ity, Nigeria has continuously failed to meet its
quota.
The decline in production has also been
affected by Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest pro-
ducer, which also exported fewer barrels than
previously. Angola has also failed to meet its
quota, due to a lack of capacity to pump at the
agreed levels.
Nigeria’s failure to meet its 1.8mn bpd pro-
duction quota is mainly caused by rampant oil
theft, which is thought to have cost Nigeria more
than $2bn in 2022 alone. Operations conducting
large-scale theft from pipelines have seen mil-
lions of barrels of oil go missing, causing some
legitimate companies to shut down production.
Large-scale theft from Nigeria’s pipelines
has throttled exports, forced some companies Illegal refining has undercut Nigeria oil output (Photo: Twitter/NMDPRA)

POLICY
Turkish gas summit will bring Europe’s

gas suppliers and consumers together

REGIONAL TURKEY is to hold a natural gas summit on “We will bring together supplier countries
February 14-15 that will bring together gas sup- from the Middle East, Mediterranean, Caspian
plier countries and Europe’s consumer coun- and Middle Asia with consumer countries from
tries, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez Europe,” Donmez said of the event, which is
said on January 30. scheduled to take place in Istanbul.

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 02•February•2023