Nigeria expects to hit its daily crude production quota in about two weeks as authorities re-open wells that had to be shut to keep criminals at bay.
Africa’s biggest oil producer will meet its quota of producing 1.6 million barrels of crude each day, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. The country has been producing 20% less than its capacity for months.
Nigeria has been struggling to meet its OPEC quota despite rising oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Crude oil sales are the nation’s biggest foreign-exchange earner and its inability to meet its production targets means Nigeria — which has also been battling a dollar shortage — is losing an opportunity to build its foreign reserves.
“The security authorities have been doing a lot of work and we have seen the production numbers pick up. In the past one month there was a time it was as low as 1.2 million barrels per day. Some of the wells that had to be shut in because of the criminality have now been opened.” Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed.
Globally, Oil is headed for its third weekly loss in four as lockdowns in virus-hit China dragged on and the Federal Reserve signalled that monetary policy will be tightened aggressively to contain decades-high inflation.
West Texas Intermediate fell toward $102 a barrel and is more than 4% lower this week. The world’s biggest crude importer has imposed a series of lockdowns including in Shanghai to stamp out a fresh Covid-19 wave. The curbs have cut demand for fuels and spurred economists to reduce growth forecasts.
Oil remains more than 35% higher this year despite the recent weakness as the fallout from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continues to rattle markets and roil crude flows.
