Nigeria to Implement OPEC Oil Output Cuts if Production Reaches 1.8 Million BPD

Nigeria is ready to implement Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries oil production if it were to reach the output of 1.8 million barrels a day, OPEC said Monday.

ST PETERSBURG (Sputnik) – Nigeria and Libya have been exempt from quotas under the Vienna deal between OPEC and 10 other major oil producers on limiting oil production agreed in November 2016. The two countries have been actively recovering their production levels ever since, increasing their production by 127,000 and 96,700 barrels per day, respectively, in June, which amounted to 57 percent of OPEC’s total increase in crude oil output for that month.

"Nigeria…despite its commitment to recover its pre-crisis production level, voluntarily agreed to implement similar OPEC production adjustments as a soon as its recovery reaches a sustainable production volume of 1.8 mb/d," the cartel said in a statement release after the 4th joint OPEC-non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in St. Petersburg.

In late 2016, OPEC and a number of non-OPEC countries agreed in Vienna to reduce their oil production by a total of 1.8 million barrels per day from the October level, with Russia's cut of 300,000 barrels per day. The agreement was concluded for the first half of 2017 with the possibility of an extension. In May, the deal was extended by nine months and is now valid until the end of March 2018.