Nigeria cuts oil exports to meet OPEC deal

Nigeria has revised down its crude oil export programme for May and June to align itself with a global production cut deal led by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, loading programmes showed.

OPEC and its allies agreed this month to cut their combined output by 9.7 million barrels per day, or 23 per cent each in May and June, from an agreed baseline.

The international oil price, Brent crude, rose by $2.13 to $22.59 per barrel as of 8:45pm Nigerian time on Wednesday.

ExxonMobil operates one of Nigeria’s key grades, Qua Iboe, which has seen planned exports slashed in June to 95,000bpd, compared with an original May programme of 215,000 bpd, according to Reuters.

It also operates several smaller offshore fields in Nigeria – Erha, Yoho and Usan.

May cargoes for the three grades have been rolled into the following month and only Yoho has a dedicated June schedule of one 350,000 barrel cargo.