Nigeria’s oil Minister, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, revealed that production, excluding condensates, was slightly below 1.8 million barrels per day in July, the country’s oil minister said yesterday.
The Minister, speaking on the sidelines of an event in Abuja, said there had been issues with aging pipelines.
“We continue to have challenges; some of our pipelines are old, so these are basically technical. They are not militancy-induced stoppages, but they are basically maintenance-induced stoppages,” he said.
Nigeria’s oil output has rebounded this year, aided by government efforts to placate militants in the Niger Delta region where the bulk of the country’s crude is produced, but it has struggled to maintain peak output levels.
Crude production in the country was cut by more than a third last year when militants carried out a series of attacks on energy facilities in the southern Niger Delta oil hub.
The country’s crude oil exports are expected to fall to 1.72 million barrels per day in October, according to loading programmes.
When asked whether Nigeria would agree to join OPEC’s production cap at the group’s November meeting, the minister said: “I can’t disclose that.”
The minister said condensates contributed 450,000 bpd to Nigeria’s production in July.
