Saturday April 24, 2010 07:58:16 AM GMT
Output has been steadily rising since an amnesty last year brought a sustained period of peace to the restive oil producing Niger Delta region, allowing foreign oil companies to repair damaged production facilities and ramp up production.
As much as two thirds of Nigeria's 3 million bpd capacity has been shut in as a result of militant attacks on oil facilities that increased in intensity from around mid-2006.
Loading programmes showed that an average of 2.16 million bpd would be shipped in June, the highest volume since November 2007, according to Reuters data collected from trade sources.
Forcados crude oil output, pumped from fields operated by Shell, has suffered outages from sabotage attacks since 2006 but production looks set to jump in June.
Around 225,000 bpd of Forcados was due to be shipped in June, up from around 158,000 bpd in May but this is still far off highs of over 400,000 bpd reached in 2005.
PIPELINE REPAIRS
"It does look like we're seeing increased production due to repair works following the amnesty, we could get even more oil later in the year," one physical West African crude oil trader said.
The June Nigerian loading schedule includes 73 cargoes with 14 shipments of the country's benchmark Qua Iboe crude oil, the highest volume of Qua shipped in over three years.
The latest revised schedules show an average of 2.13 million bpd will be exported in May.
The West African country is regularly producing well over its implied output target of 1.67 million bpd set out by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC agreed output curbs in 2008 to support falling oil prices which dropped from a high of nearly $150 a barrel in July 2008, down to below $33 in December the same year.
With U.S. crude trading above the $70 to $80 a barrel range members of the producer group have said they are happy with there is little incentive to adhere to output targets.
Crude output from Africa's most populous nation could rise further later this year as there was no EA crude scheduled to load in June. EA output usually averages 95,000 bpd.
Production of EA restarted last year after more than 3 years of outages following attacks on pipelines.. (Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson and Alex Lawler; editing by William Hardy)
Source: http://www.forexyard.com/en/news/Nigerian-crude-oil-exports-to-hit-2-1/2-year-high-2010-04-23T165831Z-UPDATE-2
By Joe Brock
LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - Nigerian crude oil exports were set to hit a two and a half year high in June, topping 2 million barrels per day for the second month running, trade sources said on Friday.Output has been steadily rising since an amnesty last year brought a sustained period of peace to the restive oil producing Niger Delta region, allowing foreign oil companies to repair damaged production facilities and ramp up production.
As much as two thirds of Nigeria's 3 million bpd capacity has been shut in as a result of militant attacks on oil facilities that increased in intensity from around mid-2006.
Loading programmes showed that an average of 2.16 million bpd would be shipped in June, the highest volume since November 2007, according to Reuters data collected from trade sources.
Forcados crude oil output, pumped from fields operated by Shell, has suffered outages from sabotage attacks since 2006 but production looks set to jump in June.
Around 225,000 bpd of Forcados was due to be shipped in June, up from around 158,000 bpd in May but this is still far off highs of over 400,000 bpd reached in 2005.
PIPELINE REPAIRS
"It does look like we're seeing increased production due to repair works following the amnesty, we could get even more oil later in the year," one physical West African crude oil trader said.
The June Nigerian loading schedule includes 73 cargoes with 14 shipments of the country's benchmark Qua Iboe crude oil, the highest volume of Qua shipped in over three years.
The latest revised schedules show an average of 2.13 million bpd will be exported in May.
The West African country is regularly producing well over its implied output target of 1.67 million bpd set out by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC agreed output curbs in 2008 to support falling oil prices which dropped from a high of nearly $150 a barrel in July 2008, down to below $33 in December the same year.
With U.S. crude trading above the $70 to $80 a barrel range members of the producer group have said they are happy with there is little incentive to adhere to output targets.
Crude output from Africa's most populous nation could rise further later this year as there was no EA crude scheduled to load in June. EA output usually averages 95,000 bpd.
Production of EA restarted last year after more than 3 years of outages following attacks on pipelines.. (Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson and Alex Lawler; editing by William Hardy)
Source: http://www.forexyard.com/en/news/Nigerian-crude-oil-exports-to-hit-2-1/2-year-high-2010-04-23T165831Z-UPDATE-2
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