TheCable

There are more troubles for the 2016 budget as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said that Nigeria’s oil production levels fell below the budget target.

According to OPEC, Nigeria produced an average of 1.95 million barrels per day in January 2016, as against the 2.2 million target set by the 2016 budget.

With a shortfall of 250,000 barrels per day, Nigeria’s oil revenue target fell by $7.5 million per day (at $30 per barrel), translating to $232.5 million in January.

Although the country’s production levels fell below 2016 targets, it was an improvement of the 2015 production of 1.7 million barrels per day.

For the month of January, OPEC contributed over 1.3 million barrels to the world oil oversupply, with Nigeria contributing to the oversupply.

“According to secondary sources, total OPEC crude oil production in January averaged 32.33 mb/d, an increase of 131 tb/d over the previous month,” OPEC said in its oil market report released on Wednesday.

“Crude oil output increased mostly from Nigeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran, while production showed a decrease of from Angola, Venezuela and Algeria.”

The Nigerian oil sector was said to have enjoyed modest improvement over the past month, OPEC also confirmed.

“The non-oil private sector in Nigeria had a modest improvement in business conditions in January. The PMI stood at 51.3 last month, signalling growth in production, new orders and job creation.”

The Nigerian budget has a crude oil target of $38 per barrel and a production level of 2.2 million barrels – both of which are currently under-delivering.