The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, on Wednesday said Nigeria would get more crude-cut exemption from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Kachikwu, who made this known at a media interaction in Abuja, said that at the expiration of Nigeria’s crude-cut exemption in March, 2018, further exemption was inevitable. He said that it was magnanimous of his OPEC colleagues to have understood that the government came in with difficulties and voluntarily gave the exemption but that market stability was an issue.
“So, the question is when do we join but I will recognise stability if I can consistently say that for at least six months, I’ve seen average daily productions that are within the umbrella of 1.8 million barrels. The market is still topsy-turvy; today I think we are around 1.6 million barrels per day. A lot of days we are slightly above 1.8 million barrels because of the understanding with our Niger Delta brothers. OPEC has no intention of giving an extension taking it back, but it shouldn’t take the butchering of my pipelines to get an exemption. If my numbers are not showing stability (but if we are fine before then) and stability arises (but this is already September so March is really six months). It’s very unlikely that I can see stability that convinces me with certainty and predictability that I should exit the exemption between now and March,” he said.
The minister said that he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise OPEC’s rules. “We are going to be very transparent on this; I was the ex-OPEC President, we have the OPEC Secretary-General from Nigeria. So, my intent definitely cannot be to play games with this but at the same time we have to be very realistic. We are committed to the OPEC position; we are committed to the cut principles. We’ll do our best to align as soon as our colleagues begin to feel that we are stable enough.”
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