The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) considers that Nigeria and Angola, the two biggest oil producers in sub-Saharan Africa, will not be able to produce the maximum allowed by quotas, at least for another year.
According to OPEC’s latest report on world oil production, the region’s two biggest producers will not even be able to reach the production limit agreed several years ago due to “persistent underinvestment and maintenance problems”.
Angola saw its production drop from almost 2 million barrels a day five years ago to just over a million today, having produced just 1.16 million barrels a day in May.
“Angola’s production has been on a consistent downward trajectory because of technical and operational problems in some fields, exacerbated by the lack of investment and incentives for prospecting new wells”, adds an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor’s to report.
The last time Angola’s oil production was at such low levels was in 2006, when production in offshore fields was still rising.
In a June 20 report by the International Energy Agency, quoted in a recent S&P review, the agency writes that “persistent divestment and maintenance issues have left many equipment at major African OPEC producers struggling to restart and make production grow sustainably”.
Last year, Nigeria and Angola produced 300,000 less barrels than the limit allowed by the quotas, that is, the two largest African producers could have produced 300,000 more barrels a day, but were unable to.
Nigeria can produce up to 1.753 million barrels a day and Angola has a limit of 1.456 million barrels.
