Nigeria’s January crude oil exports to reach three-month high

Total exports of Nigerian crude oil are expected to rise by nearly 10 percent to a three-month high in January, according to initial loading programmes.

Nigeria’s export plan for January includes a total of at least 61.8 million barrels of oil, or 1.99 million barrels per day (bpd), the highest since October this year.

Loading information for at least two programmes was still pending, meaning the total could rise further, but the programme was already five cargoes above the 1.82 million bpd initially planned for December.

The oil will face an uphill battle to find outlets, as a growing list of regions hosted unsold cargoes; Nigeria itself still has 25 to 30 of its December cargoes available for sale, and some 10 million barrels loading in November were moved into the systems of the oil companies who owned them after failing to find spot market buyers at attractive prices.

Nigerian state oil company NNPC recently lowered official selling prices for the country’s oil to their lowest in more than a decade as the fight for market share and millions of unsold barrels took their toll.