Nigeria and her counterparts in Africa producing crude oil will have their crude oil exports fall by 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the next six years as production from Africa’s biggest producers slips and rising regional refinery activity absorbs more domestic output, the International Energy Agency says.
Nigeria currently produces about two million barrels per day, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC’s) latest report, while the country’s budget benchmark for the year is projected to be 2.3 million barrels per day.
The country is facing the challenges of lack of investments in the upstream, as well as crude oil theft and pipeline vandalisation. This situation is further compounded by the low crude oil prices which have resulted in the suspension of major oil projects in the upstream.
According to the report which was published by Platts-, an energy and commodity products services agency, Africa will observe the steepest absolute decline by a major crude exporting region, with regional crude production set to decline by 400,000 barrels per day/d mainly due to fall in output in Nigeria, Algeria and Angola, according to the IEA’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report.
Production prospects in non-OPEC producers such as Sudan, South Sudan and Chad, have also been dimmed.
The IEA also said that West African oil producers are likely to have problems marketing their crudes over the next couple of years due to the existing global glut of sweet crude, which has made this region a new “swing producer.”
The report also said that by 2021, the Dangote refinery project in Nigeria is expected to start-up, which will process Nigerian crudes and thus reduce the volumes for export.
Crude runs are expected to reach 300,000 b/d in 2021 with the full 500,000 b/d nameplate capacity reached in subsequent years, the report said.
Algeria is expected to post the biggest loss in crude production in Africa and in OPEC over the six year forecast period because exploration and development of new Algerian oil fields has ground to a halt.
IEA said that Algeria’s oil production will fall by 170,000 b/d to 990,000 b/d in 2021 as a lack of investment pushes ageing oil fields into decline.
The IEA said the oil price collapse was causing “particular pain” for Africa’s two largest oil producers, Nigeria and Angola, as oil output is expected to slow down along with declining state revenues.
Nigeria’s oil production is expected to decline by 70,000 b/d by 2021 to 1.85 million b/d as investment slows in the country’s high-cost deepwater projects and “large-scale oil theft and pipeline sabotage in the Niger Delta continues unabated.”
Africa’s second largest producer, Angola, will see its crude production fall to 1.8 million b/d in 2021, a fall of 20,000 b/d over the six-year forecast period, according to the IEA.
The IEA said Angola’s official 2 million b/d target looked unachievable even before the fall in oil prices, due to technical problems besetting its deep water projects.
“The country’s ageing offshore oil fields need continuous support from new and costly projects to offset steep declines and since output peaked in 2008, Luanda has struggled to stem the drop,” the report added.
The report said WAF oil producers like Nigeria and Angola may be forced to cut prices to sell barrels, with low prices, oversupply and high stocks projected to prevail until at least early-2017.
There is currently a glut of WAF crude in the global market and a lot of these cargoes have been unsold leading to excess barrels being stored on tankers.
But the IEA said WAF producers have the geographical flexibility to sell oil east or west as demand requires. It also said that customers for African crude will remain relatively similar over the forecast period.
Europe is expected to remain the main demand outlet for WAF crude, but imports of African crude to OECD Europe are set to decline by 500,000 b/d accounting for 2.2 million b/d in 2021.
The IEA added, however, that if Libyan production rose, “incremental volumes are expected to be shipped to traditional European markets likely backing out similar light, sweet crudes from West Africa.”
By 2021, Chinese imports of African crudes are set to inch up by 200,000 b/d to about 1.5 million b/d with the bulk of these coming from Angola.
Olusola Bello with agency report
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