TheCable

Oil prices hit $57 on Monday after the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) maintained the decision to exempt Nigeria and Libya from the oil production cut.

Members and non-members of the organisation had first agreed on the production cut in December 2016 to ease the supply glut in the market. This caused prices to fall as low as $29 in January 2016.

As of noon on Monday, Brent crude was trading at $57.57 per barrel, an increase of $1.15 from Friday’s trading price of $56.42.

US West Texas Intermediate was trading at $50.91 per barrel, an increase of 29 cents from Friday’s trading price of $50.62 a barrel.

The joint ministerial monitoring committee of OPEC and non-OPEC countries which held in Vienna on Friday had agreed that the original agreement be maintained.

Some countries had expressed concerns about increasing output from Nigeria and Libya.

Emmanuel Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, who led Nigeria’s delegation to the meeting, argued that though Nigeria’s production recovery efforts have made some appreciable progress since October last year, Nigeria is not yet out of the woods.

“OPEC’s actions are working and compliance is acceptable overall, although there needs to be some change. Changes are really related to Libya and Nigeria and the 100 percent compliance of everyone,” Bijan Zanganeh, Iran ‘s oil minister, told journalists on Friday.

However, he did not elaborate on the kind of changes to be made.