West African heavyweight producers Nigeria and Angola are within shouting distance of meeting their Opec-plus targets, with Angola’s recent loading programs down to 1.2 million barrels per day and serial cheater Nigeria promising further cuts in July to make up for undercompliance in May and June. Why now such discipline from traditional laggards? Nigeria has little choice after suffer- ing a massive contraction in demand when its key markets, India and Europe, went into lockdown — a problem Angola had faced down months earlier with its own main customer, China. The Opec-plus pact set a 1.412 million b/d target for Nigeria and 1.18 million b/d for Angola for May and June. The decision in early June to extend the targets for an extra month was accompanied by demands from Opec kingpin Saudi Arabia to make up for overproduction in June and July (PIW Jun.12’20). Nigeria’s compliance is always contentious to measure, not least because it defines Akpo and Agbami as condensates for Opec purposes when most traders would classify Agbami as crude. By this definition Nigeria produced at least 1.76 million b/d in February and March, slowing to 1.65 million b/d in April, and at least 1.48 million b/d in May, excluding storage. Angola produced at least 1.35 million b/d in February and March, falling in April to around 1.24 million b/d.
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