Oil production rises to 1.71mbpd 

Nigeria’s August oil production rose significantly reaching 1.71 million barrels per day (bpd), from 1.53 bpd recorded in July, according to Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), in its latest report.

This is a far cry from daily average production of 2.3 million bpd as contained in the 2018 budget which also benchmarked crude price at $50.5 per barrel.

Former President of the Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Mr Saka Matemilola, said the benchmark in the 2018 budget was very sensible at $50.5 per barrel. According to Matemilola, the benchmark of 50.5 dollars is very sensible because he does not expect oil price to go below 55 dollars per barrel by the end of the year.

“What we should be concerned about is how we can utilise the savings from excess crude price which goes to excess crude account. How do we spend this savings that will impact meaningfully on average Nigerians?

“There is a huge infrastructural gap that needs to be closed. Infrastructure like hospitals, roads and power need to be invested in so that Nigerians can feel the impact of rising crude oil price,” he said.

Force majeure, pipeline vandalism, and crude oil theft have hindered the government’s efforts to attain the 2.3 million bpd benchmark. In 2016, Nigeria’s daily production fell as low as 80000 bpd due to unrest in the Niger Delta region.

The OPEC report also stated that “Going forward, economic uncertainty, and hence questions surrounding global oil demand, coupled with geopolitical tensions, will need to be factored into maintaining a balanced market in the months to come.”

• MFM General Overseer, Dr. Dk Olukoya, didn’t send me to Sowore – Dr. Akinloye

Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia are the world’s three biggest oil producers by far, meeting around a third of the world’s nearly 100 million barrels per day (bpd) of daily crude consumption.

Russian Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, said that Russia and a group of producers around the Middle East dominated OPEC, may sign a new long-term cooperation deal at the beginning of December, the TASS news agency reported.

Chinese media Xinhua said the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast that U.S. crude oil production will average 10.7 million bpd in 2018, up from 9.4 million barrels bpd in 2017, and will average 11.5 million barrels bpd in 2019.

“We think oil market fundamentals are increasingly supportive of crude prices, at least at current levels,” said Gordon Gray, HSBC’s global head of oil and gas equity research.