Nigeria, Others Reduced Oil Production by 2.6 Billion Barrels – OPEC

Nigeria and other participating countries in the Declaration of Corporation by member and non-member nations of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries have so far reduced crude oil production by 2.6 billion barrels.

OPEC announced on Thursday that the participating countries contributed in cutting down this volume of oil between April 2020 and February 2021 in order to balance the global oil market.

It announced this in a statement issued at the end of the 15th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting which took place via videoconference.

The statement read in part, “The ministers noted that since the April 2020 meeting, OPEC and non-OPEC participating countries in the DoC had contributed to adjusting downward global oil supply by 2.6 billion barrels of oil by the end of February 2021, which has accelerated the rebalancing of the oil market.”

The ministers expressed their thanks to countries that had submitted plans for previous oil compensation shortfalls and continued to work towards compensating for overproduced volumes.

They urged all participants to achieve full conformity to reach the objective of market rebalancing and avoid undue delay in the process.

In this regard, the ministers agreed to the request by several countries that had not yet completed their oil compensation for an extension of the compensation period until the end of September 2021.

The ministers also agreed that participating countries with outstanding overproduced

volumes would submit their plans for implementation of any required compensation for overproduced volumes to the OPEC secretariat by April 15, 2021.

The meeting emphasised the ongoing positive contributions of the Declaration of Cooperation in supporting a rebalancing of the global oil market.

“These outcomes are in line with the historic decisions taken at the 10th (Extraordinary) OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on April 12, 2020 to adjust downwards overall crude oil production, and subsequent decisions,” the statement said.

The ministers approved the adjustment of the production levels for May, June and July 2021 and agreed to continue their monthly meetings to decide on production level adjustments for the following month, with every adjustment being no more than 0.5 million barrels per day.