By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
April loading of Nigerian crude oil is in a slow uptake on the international market with programmes due to emerge next week.
Despite that, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe and Total SA have signed an oil production sharing contract, which will raise Nigeria’s output.
Nigeria plans to increase production from 1.78 million barrels per day (bpd) to 2.2 million (bpd) in 2019, even though its quota in the Organisation of Petroleum Countries (OPEC) is 1.74 million bpd.
“Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe through their joint oil zone organisation have signed a production sharing contract with Total E&P (Exploration and Production) Nigeria Limited that will prospect for oil in three blocks,” a joint statement issued on March 14 said.
Reuters quoted Nicholas Terraz, Managing Director of Total E&P, as saying the company would take on 100 per cent of the financing, but may seek partners as discoveries are made.
The estimated reserves of the blocks – 7, 8 and 11 – were not disclosed, but Total will be the first to do seismic studies.
However, about 30 April loading Nigerian cargoes were still available on March 14, according to Reuters.
In contrast, about 10 Angolan cargoes remain from the April programme with the new one set to emerge by March 18.
Additional money is also coming in for Angola as the World Bank has agreed to lend it $1 billion to fund social security and water projects.
India may buy more from Nigeria
On the brighter side, Nigeria can look to selling more oil to India, its largest buyer after the United States.
India’s oil imports from Iran in February plunged by over 60 per cent from a year ago to about 260,000 bpd as New Delhi cuts imports under a sanctions waiver deal with Washington, data compiled by Reuters showed.
Last November, the U.S. introduced sanctions to cripple Iran’s oil revenue-dependent economy but gave a six-month waiver to eight nations, including India, which allowed them to import some Iranian oil.
India has been allowed by Washington to continue to buy about 300,000 bpd oil till early May.
India’s February imports from Iran were about 4 per cent lower than January’s purchases, the data showed.
Iran was the eighth biggest oil supplier to India in February compared with seventh in January, and slipped from third position it held a year ago.
Last month, Tehran’s share in India’s overall oil imports declined to about 5 per cent from about 14 per cent a year earlier.
In the first 11 months of this fiscal year that began in April, India’s oil imports from Iran rose by 5.6 per cent to 486,400 bpd as refiners boosted purchases ahead of the U.S. sanctions drawn by discounts offered by Tehran, the data showed.
Iran was hoping to sell more than 500,000 bpd of oil to India in 2018/19, its Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said last year, and had offered almost free shipping and an extended credit period to boost sales to the country.
Indian refiners Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp, Mangalore Refinery and Petroleum Corp and Indian Oil Corp together lifted 1.25 million tonnes or 9 million barrels of Iranian oil in February.
Delivery of some cargoes is delayed to March as Tehran has a limited number of ships.
In the previous fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2018, Indian refiners cut purchases from Iran due to a dispute over the award of development rights of a giant gas field.
Government sources say Reuters’ calculations showing India’s oil imports from Iran in this fiscal year would be higher than the 452,000 bpd, or 22.6 million tonnes, it imported in the previous year, were correct.
India’s total oil imports in February were about 5 million barrels, a growth of about 4.6 per cent from a year earlier, the data showed.
