Uche Cecil Izuora
Nigeria is set to engage the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ask for quota hike as the country prepares ground to hit 2 million barrels a day production.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Bashir Ojulari, said he will be lobbying for a 25 per cent increase in the production quota by 2027, and remains hopeful that this time Nigeria’s request will be granted.
Nigeria is hoping to win an increase of its Opec+ crude production target to 2 million b/d from 2027 in upcoming talks over updated country capacities.
Nigeria’s current crude quota is 1.5mn b/d, but Ojulari said current production today is slightly below that at around 1.4mn b/d. Including around 250,000 b/d of liquids, that takes current oil output to around 1.65mn b/d, just shy of the country’s current oil production capacity.
According to Argus media, Nigeria’s crude output at just shy of 1.6mn b/d in May, the latest month for which estimates are available, although that figure includes production of Nigerian light sweet Agbami, which Nigeria itself classes as condensate.
By 2027, NNPC is targeting capacity of around 2.4mn b/d, and production of 2mn b/d, Ojulari said. Of this production, around 1.7mn b/d will be crude and the 300,000 b/d balance, condensate.
And within three years, the company is aiming for production of 3mn b/d, comprising crude output of 2.5mn b/d and condensate production of 500,000 b/d. Capacity will be around 3.5mn b/d.
Nigeria’s plans come as the OPEC+ group embarks on a new campaign to update and refresh each member country’s maximum sustainable production capacity, which would then be used to determine new production baselines, or quotas, for members from which output targets for 2027 will be calculated.
The OPEC secretariat was in late May instructed by the alliance to start developing a framework to present to the ministers at the next full OPEC+ ministerial conference on 30 November.
Nigeria has on several occasions in recent years attempted to request an upward revision to its OPEC+ production baseline, the level from which production quotas are calculated, but with no success.
This was primarily due to the country largely failing to meet even existing targets because of infrastructure and operational problems. But with those issues now largely behind it, Nigeria is looking to make a renewed attempt to argue its case to be allowed to produce more, particularly in light of the significant additional oil refining capacity that the country has added, and will add, over the coming 12-18 months.
“We believe that with the increased demand being created in-country, we are now in a better position to also seek from OPEC to increase our production quota,” Ojulari said.
Nigeria recently commissioned the 600,000 b/d Dangote refinery while 500,000 b/d of modular refining capacity that are at “different stages of progress”, Ojulari said. “So you can imagine, over the next two years, we will be talking of [additional] refining capacity of around 1mn b/d of just Nigerian local consumption.”
At present, Nigeria is having to adhere to an OPEC+ crude quota of 1.5mn b/d which, barring any change in policy over the coming months, is due to hold until the end of 2026.
“What I want to have by 2027 is 2mn b/d; that is what we will be asking,” he said. “What the outcome of that conversation will be will depend on how successful we are in our discussions and interactions. But that is what we are gunning for.”