Two Opec (Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries) member countries - Angola and Nigeria - will
bring giant oil fields online this year, testing their commitment to cap output
amid a global push to curb supply, said a report.
Total SA plans to start production at two
so-called mega-projects, Kaombo in Angola and Egina in Nigeria, reported
Bloomberg citing the company chief executive Patrick Pouyanne.
Once both are onstream -- Kaombo by mid-year
and Egina in the fourth quarter -- they’ll have a combined capacity of 430,000
barrels a day. That exceeds the total output of Opec members Gabon and
Equatorial Guinea, he added.
The Opec has been curtailing production for
more than a year, achieving unprecedented compliance with caps and driving oil
prices up 18 per cent in 2017 as global stockpiles finally shrank.
Yet the latest supply data from Angola and
Nigeria show that the additional barrels planned for this year would cause both
to flout their OPEC commitments should their output remain otherwise unchanged,
stated the report.
Total didn’t immediately reply when asked
whether it expects to curb future output should host governments request it.
Angola’s production totaled 1.63 million
barrels a day in December, according to Opec, within its quota of 1.67 million
a day. Nigeria, whose 1.8 million-barrel cap has only recently come into force,
pumped 1.86 million a day in the month.
Opec has said it’s committed to keeping limits
on output through 2018, though a ministerial meeting is scheduled for June to
discuss policy.
To be sure, neither African
country is guaranteed to maintain steady production from existing deposits.
Angolan fields have suffered from natural declines, while Nigeria has been
subject to militant attacks that sent output to a two-decade low in 2016, it
added.
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