Yemisi Izuora
The federal government has slashed price of crude oil export for the month of March as no Nigerian cargoes is sailing to China in February.
Nigeria is becoming increasingly dependent on European demand and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has effectuated an across-the-board price cut on its March 2020 official selling prices.
Its flagship export streams like Bonny Light, Qua Iboe, Forcados, Egina or Escravos were all cut by 50-60 cents per barrel month-on-month.
Also, Nigeria’s preliminary loading programmes for April continued to emerge, after differentials were weighed down in the last trading cycle by sluggish demand
in both Eastern and Western markets.
Nigeria will export seven cargoes of Bonny Light in April, with volumes set to fall to 228,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 245,000 bpd in March,,according to Reuters.
Exports of Forcados were set at nine cargoes or 283,000, bpd in April, up slightly from 279,000 bpd in March.
A single cargo of Yoho is due to be exported by Nigeria’s NNPC on April 9-10.
Meanwhile, oil prices fell on Friday as OPEC+ decided not to move its March meeting forward while Russia indicated that it currently has no intentions to cut production further.
