By Onoyiwita Pretty Oghale
- Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, says Nigeria has lost the United States as a significant crude export market
- The United States was Nigeria’s top crude importer, buying around 700,000 b/d of the commodity from Africa’s biggest producer
Dr Ibe Kachikwu, Nigeria's minister of state for petroleum resources, has said Nigeria has forever lost United States of America, as a significant crude export market, Vanguard reports.
The minister speaking at CERAWeek in Houston, US, noted that the era when the United States was a ready market for crude oil from Nigeria “is gone”.
The CERAWeek conference tries to strike an outreach between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, and shale oil producers.
However, this volume has been dropping since then, reaching zero import level by June 2015 following a surge in production of shale oil.
Light sweet Nigerian crude is very similar to the light oil produced in US shale. As US shale production has grown, the appetite for Nigerian crude in the US has dropped dramatically.
Nigerian crude is now favourite for the Asian markets led by India. Nigeria’s oil output averaged 2.07 million in February, 20,000 b/d up from January, according to petroleum ministry estimates.
According to an earlier report by NAIJ.com,the minister of state for petroleum resources Emmanuel Kachikwu said the price of petroleum products and not lack of refineries was the major problem in the sector.
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Daily Trust reports that Kachikwu the only mechanism that would address scarcity and lack of queues at the fuel station would be a review in price and not repair or building of new refineries.
He said: ''Ultimately, the greater challenge that this country would have and still have is that of pricing.
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