Page 7 - AfrOil Week 17 2020
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But the sector will surely be hurt by the fall of Brent, the main European benchmark, as it indexes the price of its production to this grade, he told Citi Business News.
“I don’t see much concern because of the exceptional case in the US,” he stated. “However, we also saw Brent crude tumble by more than 8% today [April 24].”
If Brent continues to lose value, he said, Ghanaian crude will also fetch a lower price. “[That will mean that either all the oil producers in Ghana would have to shut down or they also have to be prepared to sell at a lower cost,” he said. Either way, the country’s oil revenues will decline, he remarked.
Sakyi went on to say that he expected oil prices to recover later in the year. He also cau- tioned, though, that concerns about oversupply, low demand and a shortage of storage capacity would continue to affect global crude markets
in the short term.
He was speaking shortly after Duncan
Amoah, the executive secretary of Ghana’s Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), recommended that the country respond to these problems by giving a boost to local oil consump- tion. “Government should also consider getting our local refinery back to productivity in order to process Ghana’s oil locally, as we understand some of our producers or oilfields may be soon forced to shut down production due to lack of storage space globally,” he was quoted as saying by the Ghanaian Times.
CPEC has also urged the government to use domestic oil production to fill up its strategic reserves. Accra can accomplish this goal by help- ing Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST), the state agency that maintains strategic oil and fuel stocks, to secure the credit it needs to finance this operation, it said last week.
COPEC sees the inactive Tema refinery as a destination for Ghanaian crude production
Brazzaville set to export oil in excess of OPEC+ quotas
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
THE Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) looks set to export more crude oil than expected in May and June.
Loading schedules indicate that the country will load the equivalent of 300,000 barrels per day in the month of May and 278,000 bpd in June, Argus Media reported earlier this week. Export volumes are set to drop in June because the roster of loadings includes one less cargo of Djeno, a medium sweet crude, than the roster for May.
Both monthly figures are in excess of the production quotas that the African state had previously agreed to set, as outlined in the new
OPEC+ agreement. Under the accord, which was signed earlier this month by members of OPEC and several non-member states, the Republic of Congo was supposed to cap output at 251,000 bpd in May and June. Nevertheless, it will be sending larger volumes to market in both months.
This suggests that the country may have a difficult time abiding by its commitments to the OPEC+ group, Argus Media commented.
It also noted, though, that the loading pro- grammes for May and June had been drawn up prior to the signing of the latest production agreement.
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