No Plan to Exceed Output Target – Mohammad Barkindo

• No Plan to Exceed Output Target

The Secretary-General, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammad Barkindo said yesrterday that Nigeria has no intention of going beyond its oil production target of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of March next year.

Barkindo spoke at the opening of the fourth Joint OPEC-non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in St. Petersburg, Russia.

He also said Libya has an output target of 1.25 million bpd by December, but it remains a target given the challenges the country faces.

NAN reports that OPEC and some non-OPEC states including Russia agreed in 2016 to cut production by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in a deal that has been extended to March 2018.

OPEC moved to cap Nigerian oil output and called on several members to boost compliance with production cuts to help clear excessive global stocks and support flagging prices.

OPEC states Libya and Nigeria were exempted from the limits to help their oil industries recover from years of unrest.

The deal to curb output propelled crude prices above $58 a barrel in January but they have since slipped back to a $45 to $50 range as the effort to drain global inventories has taken longer than expected.

Rising output from U.S. shale producers has offset the impact of the output curbs, as has climbing production from Libya and Nigeria.

A ministerial committee of OPEC and non-OPEC states that monitors the global oil pact said it had agreed Nigeria would join the deal by capping or even cutting its output from 1.8 million bpd, once it stabilises at that level from 1.7 million bpd recently.

The monitoring committee, known as JMMC and which met in the Russian city of St Petersburg, did not give the timeframe for when this would happen, saying it would track Nigerian production patterns in the next weeks.

The committee did not back capping Libyan output as it said its production was unlikely to exceed one million bpd in the near future compared to its capacity of 1.4 million-1.6 million bpd before unrest erupted in 2011 and plunged the nation into chaos.