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Tag: Crude Oil

  • Oil rises to near 1-month high on supply tightening

    Oil rises to near 1-month high on supply tightening

    Oil rose to a near one-month high on Wednesday on signs of a gradual tightening in global oil inventories and on concerns about a supply cut at a field in the United Kingdom’s North Sea that feeds into an international benchmark price.

    Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, were at 54.52 dollars per barrel, up 35 cents, or 0.65 percent, from their last close.

    U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 33 cents, or 0.65 per cent, at 51.35 dollars a barrel.

    Both benchmarks on Wednesday hit their highest levels since March 8.

  • FG projects crude oil rise above 2.2m barrels by June

    FG projects crude oil rise above 2.2m barrels by June

    The Federal Government on Tuesday in Abuja projected that the nation’s crude oil production would increase.

    The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, gave the projection in a keynote address on the topic ‘Outlining NNPC’s Commercial Strategy and Priorities’ at the 16th Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference (NOG).‎

    He said ‎although the corporation was constrained by the non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill now before the National Assembly, NNPC had sharpened commercial strategies to mitigate challenges which would move it from the era of losses into profitable operation.

    ‎”Crude production declined to as low as 1.5 million barrels per day in July 2016, but this has steadily increased to 2.1 million barrels in recent times.‎

    ”This is due to strategic steps taken by the NNPC and her partners to be able to produce from assets that were affected by pipeline vandalism.

    ”We must also mention that improvement in production is also as a result of successes of recent dialogue held by the Federal Government in the Niger Delta areas.‎

    ”We are hoping that by the end of Q2, 2017, we should ramp up production above the budget benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day,” he said.‎

    ‎Baru said the Joint Venture cash call debt burden, that had been solved, saved the nation about three billion dollars.
    ”The initial sum of about 8.1 billion dollars was reduced to about 5.1 billion dollars that will be paid over five years through incremental production. This notable achievement has saved the nation about three billion dollars.

    ”The resolution of cash call arrears is expected to increase the confidence of JV operations in the system and therefore ginger more investments in new capital projects,” he said.

    The NOG, which began on Feb. 27, ends on March 2. (

  • Militant attacks: Nigeria lost up to $100bn in 2016 – Kachikwu

    Militant attacks: Nigeria lost up to $100bn in 2016 – Kachikwu

    The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has said the country lost as much as $100bn in revenue last year as attacks by militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta cut crude output to a record low.

    Kachikwu, who stated this on Tuesday in his monthly broadcast posted on his Facebook page with the title: ‘Oil sector militancy challenges: Road map to closure’, said the nation’s oil production fell by as high as one million barrels per day sometimes last year.

    He said as part of ongoing efforts to end the militancy challenges in the oil sector, the ministry had come up with a 20-point agenda.

    According to the minister, one of the critical challenges the country has is the militancy that has plagued the Niger Delta environment and disturbed oil operations.

    He said, “At the highest point of this last year, we were producing 1.2 million barrels, which means we were losing literally a million barrels of oil per day. At that time also, we were basically losing an average, if you look at 2016, of over $50bn to $100bn of unearned income as a result of this disruption.

    “Jobs were out; pipelines were strewn all over the place; refineries couldn’t work to capacity, and we couldn’t meet our contractual international obligations. And the economy basically suffered.”

    Noting that oil price also declined by 60 per cent over the last one and half years, Kachikwu said, “You see the massive problem that President Muhammadu Buhari has faced and had to deal with over this period. It is a massive problem.

    “This is a problem that has consistently been there even before the government of President Obasanjo, and it went on into other governments. It is a problem that seems to be intractable. So, it is a difficult undertaking to try to embark on trying to resolve it once and for all, but we are very bullish about this.”

    According to the minister, the 20-point agenda include engagement town hall meetings; inter-agency collaboration; ring-fenced state approach; security hold hands; peace and investment on state basis; focused investments in gas-to-power; incentive for peace scheme; massive civil infrastructure revamp; and Niger Delta Development Fund Initiative.

    “All our pipelines are old; all our gas distribution systems are old; all our depots are hardly functioning. Working with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, we are going to embark on looking for third-party funds to massively begin infrastructure revamp of the assets that are required in the industry. If we do that, a lot of jobs will be created. In addition to that, we want to target specific investments in this area,” Kachikwu added.