ABUJA, Nov. 26 (Chinese media) -- Nigeria on Wednesday threatened that it would stop further cuts in its crude oil production if other member countries of the OPEC cartel failed to obey its earlier directives to do so.
The OPEC had ordered the cut to save crude oil from further bashing in the ongoing global economic meltdown.
Following the directive, Nigeria cut its daily crude oil production by 113,000 barrels per day (bpd) to peg its production at 2.05 million bpd.
Answering questions from State House correspondents on the sides of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, Minister of State for Energy (Petroleum) Odein Ajumogobia said until other member countries complied with the directive, Nigeria would no longer carry out any production cut.
"Our position is that we want to ensure that everybody has complied with the previous cut. We have complied and we were asked to cut 113,000 bpd and we have done that," he said.
"At the last meeting when there was a cut we found out that a lot of countries did not comply, so before we look at any further cut, we first want to be sure that everybody has complied," Ajumogobia said.
"We are producing what we agreed to produce which is 2.05 million bpd even though we have a capacity for a significantly higher figure than that but we have complied with the cut strictly," he added.
Ajumogobia said the reluctance of some member countries to obey the OPEC directive was not an indication of a divided house.
"I think that when you have a group and have diverse interests within the group, sometimes it is not, and that is why we have been very successful notwithstanding the diversity of interests, we are able to build consensus," he said.
He said in spite of the seeming disagreement among member countries, Nigeria would continue to work with other OPEC members for the unity and common goals of the organization.
"Nigeria will not break ranks with the consensus but as I said we want to make sure that there has been compliance with the previous directive from OPEC, " Ajumogobia said.
He admitted that if Nigeria agreed to a further cut, it would affect the budget but noted that the excess revenue made previously would help to mitigate the anticipated loss.
"If we cut, it will affect the budget. It will affect the total revenue. The revenue is based on the benchmark plus volume, so if it comes to volume you may just have to adjust the budget again but I don't think we need to do that because we can always mitigate it based on the fact that we have significant excess from the high price and we can probably mitigate some of that loss," he said.
"There are two issues there - price and volume, and for a country like Nigeria that depends on the commodity, we depend on both," he added.
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