50 Cargoes Of Nigeria’s Crude Yet To Find Buyers – Kyari

The Group Managing Director(GMD)Of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC), Mele Kyari says about 50 cargoes of Nigeria’s crude and over 12 LNG cargoes globally are yet to find buyers.

Kyari disclosed this on Wednesday during a consultative roundtable with the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, themed, ‘Going for Growth’ in Abuja.

According to Kyari, the outbreak of coronavirus and the ongoing oil war between members of OPEC and OPEC+ have impacted the oil prices and consumption rate in Nigeria.

Noting that the current oil war wasn’t hitting Nigeria alone, Kyari said on Tuesday, Iraq dropped its prices by $5 while Saudi Arabia dropped by $8 to some locations.

“So when your crude oil sells at $30 and you are dropping it by $8, this means that you are selling at $22 in the market.

 “That’s a huge problem and can be tolerated by some production environment like Saudi Arabia whose average production cost is about $4-$5 per barrel.

 “This cannot happen in Nigeria,” Kyari stated.

Speaking on the drop of oil price to $30, kyari said Nigeria might not be able to survive it for a while even if the price goes back to $58, because “you have to have a backlog of production to cushion the effect.”

 “That, therefore, depresses the possibility of coming out of the impact of the Coronavirus for a long time to come, at least 3months.

 “What we know today is that the conservative of estimates is that we will have at least 100 million barrels of crude demand even by 2020, meaning that fossil fuel will remain a significant contributor to the total energy mix in the next 20-30 years to come and cannot be eliminated.

 “What will not be there are inefficient producers because as we speak today, we are getting production from the least of expected places and nearly most countries are in the oil-producing territory.

 Meanwhile, the GMD raised concerns on the inability of Nigeria’s financial sector to fund the oil and gas sector adding that if the narrative was not changed, the country would struggle to keep up with its competing needs and resources required to produce oil competitively.