By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s largest crude stream, Qua Iboe, will export six cargoes of the black gold in August in line with plans for Africa’s largest oil producer to meet its compliance to cut daily crude production as promised.
In its loading programme for July, the Nigerian crude loaded seven cargoes, indicating one lesser cargo to go towards its destination for the next loading programme.
This means that with a standard cargo size of 950,000 barrels, Qua loadings will average 184,000 barrels per day in August, down from 215,000 barrels per day in July.
The drop in planned exports has been seen to reflect Nigeria’s pledge to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) agreement to deepen oil output cuts in later months, after failing to fully meet its initial supply cut commitments in May.
After a Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), OPEC stressed that the attainment of 100 percent conformity from all participating countries was necessary for the ongoing and timely rebalancing efforts to help deliver a sustainable oil market stability.
It reiterated its earlier position to extend the first phase of the production adjustments by a further month till July and subscribing to the concept of compensation by those countries who were unable to reach full conformity (100 percent) in May and June, which includes Nigeria.
Nigeria, along with nations such as Iraq, Gabon, Angola and Kazakhstan, under-complied with its OPEC+ commitment to cut oil exports in May by 9.7 million barrels per day as the cartel sought to prop up prices.
While Nigeria was meant to produce 1.4 million barrels daily, it ended up pumping more than 200,000 barrels per day above that target, making it one of the highest laggards in May.
