By Natalie Grover, Robert Harvey and Ahmad Ghaddar, Reuters agency.- The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Aiteo launched a new type of crude oil called Nembe through a joint venture, at a time when Africa’s largest oil producer increases its output.
Crude theft, attacks on Niger Delta pipelines and lack of investment have led to production declines for many years, reducing Nigerian government revenues and generating large fiscal deficits. But production has picked up in recent months.
The Nembe crude flow will be managed and marketed by a joint venture of state-owned NNPC and oil company Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. Ltd, the first crude marketing project of its kind managed exclusively by Nigerian entities.
“It is certainly the trajectory we are going to follow,” said Maryamu Idris, executive director of crude oil and condensates at NNPC Trading, at the Argus European Crude conference in London.
Nembe production was added to that of Bonny Light more than three years ago, until sabotage incidents on the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) reduced production, an NNPC source told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference. London.
Now, the country has managed to resurrect Nembe as an independent grade, he added. The addition allows Nigeria to export two more shipments of 950,000 barrels of crude oil each per monthNNPC said in a statement.
Nembe is similar to other rich Nigerian distillates such as Forcados, Bonga and Egina, NNPC’s Idris stated.
This low-sulfur crude oil has a premium to Brent and is a good candidate to compete with Brazilian and Azeri crudes with European refineries, he added.
Nembe production is currently around 50,000 barrels per day, but the NNPC aims to increase it to 80,000 in the first quarter of next year and to 150,000 barrels per day in early 2025, the source added.
A Reuters survey in October showed Nigeria producing about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), up from 1.39 million bpd in September, according to OPEC figures. However, the country hopes to increase output to about 1.8 million barrels a day by the end of 2023, a second NNPC source told Reuters. (Reporting by Natalie Grover, Robert Harvey and Ahmad Ghaddar, additional reporting by Alex Lawler in London and Julia Payne in Brussels; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
Source: Ambito
