By Arathy Somasekhar
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Nigeria will be able to meet OPEC’s production target, an executive from Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC said on Tuesday.
After years of underperforming OPEC quotas, Nigeria met its OPEC targets in January, said Udobong Ntia, NNPC’s executive vice president of upstream.
“In January, I think we’re back on targets … I’m positive we will be able to meet our targets,” Ntia said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek conference by S&P Global in Houston.
Production rose in January to 1.75 million barrels per day (bpd), from 1.5 million bpd in December.
“Production is on an incline,” Ntia said.
While there were concerns of Nigeria exceeding its quota in January, he believed the country was on target as production included both crude and condensate.
OPEC oil output fell in January for a second month, a Reuters survey found, partly due to a drop in exports from Nigeria.
Nigerian output, which rebounded in December, held at similar levels in January, a Reuters survey last month found, leaving more to do if the country is to meet a target to lift output to 1.6 million bpd this quarter.
Nigerian production slipped by 60,000 bpd, the survey found, reflecting lower exports, although domestic usage is increasing as the Dangote refinery ramps up.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
