Page 13 - AfrOil Week 27

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

The plant usually handles oil from Agoco’s According to initial loading programmes
al-Bayda, Hamada, Mesla, Nafoora and Sarir viewed by the news agency, the company is lift-
fields. ing one cargo of 600,000 barrels from the Bouri
As of press time, NOC had not confirmed terminal and another cargo of the same size
the resumption of development operations at from Farwah. This will bring monthly export
Mesla. Argus Media had reported earlier last volumes up to 1.2mn barrels, down by 33.3% on
week that as of June 29, Agoco was still waiting the June figure of 1.8mn barrels.
for its parent company to grant formal approval NOC is currently producing about 110,000
to its restart plans. bpd of oil. The company says it has lost more
Mesla is one of many Libyan oilfields that than $6bn this year as a consequence of the
was forced to suspend production after troops blockade by the LNA and its supporters, which
loyal to Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Libyan are battling the Tripoli-based Government of
National Army (LNA), mounted a blockade of National Accord (GNA) for control of the coun-
key infrastructure facilities such as pipelines and try. ™
export terminals. These events prevented NOC
from transporting, processing and exporting
crude oil, which is one of Libya’s main sources
of hard currency. They also caused production
levels to drop by more than 800,000 bpd and
bottom out below 100,000 bpd.
Before the blockade began in January, Mesla
typically yielded around 60,000-80,000 of oil.
This is roughly equivalent to 20-27% of Agoco’s
output, which went up to 300,000 bpd.

Exports down
In related news, Bloomberg reported on July 5
that NOC was on track to export two crude car-
goes this month. Mesla is the first oilfield in eastern Libya to be restarted (Image: EIA)

Angola bristles under pressure to

implement OPEC+ production cuts

ANGOLA ANGOLA’S government has reportedly decided Saudi Arabia, the most influential member of
that it cannot comply with the terms of the crude OPEC, is reportedly leading efforts to convince
oil production quota regime that was adopted by Angola to comply with the terms of the deal and
the OPEC+ group in April and then extended the subsequent extension. So far, though, offi-
in June. cials in Luanda have resisted the pressure, saying
Under the quota system, Angola was sup- that they are already working hard to implement
posed to limit crude oil output to 1.18mn barrels the OPEC+ group’s plan for supporting world
per day (bpd). However, the OPEC+ Joint Min- oil prices.
isterial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) has “Angola argues they did cut [production]
concluded that the country exceeded its quota quickly, despite the pain and difficulty it put
by around 100,000 bpd in May. them in with regard to long-term supply con-
It has therefore instructed Angola, along tracts,” a separate source familiar with Angola’s
with all other overproducers, to make extra cuts plans told Reuters.
between June and September in order to make The national oil company (NOC) Sonangol
up for that lapse. is set to supply 100% of contracted volumes to
Officials in Luanda did agree to this com- Indian customers such as Mangalore Refinery
pensatory plan in June. Now, though, they have and Petrochemicals Ltd (MPRL) and Indian Oil
indicated that they want to wait to make the Corp. (IOC) and to Chinese clients such as Sin-
additional reductions. ochem and Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec,
“Angola is saying they would not compensate the source said.
for its overproduction in July-September like the Meanwhile, it appears that the country
rest of the countries but would be able to com- may have overshot its quota again last month.
pensate only in October-December,” one OPEC According to a survey conducted by Reuters, the
source told Reuters last week. “We are still trying country exceeded its target by about 60,000 bpd
to convince them.” in June. ™

Week 27 08•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13