FG Directs NCDMB To Achieve 100% Offshore Platform Fabrication By 2027

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, speaking at the just-concluded Nigerian Content Workshop in Imo, has charged the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to ensure that the Nigerian oil and gas industry is able to produce all its needs by the year 2027, The Sun reports.

He said the Federal Government expects that over the next 10 years, the Nigerian oil and gas industry, in collaboration with foreign investors would have developed in-country capacities and capabilities to produce all its offshore platforms locally.

Noting that Nigerian Content achievement in engineering services had hit 80%, the Minister insisted that performance in offshore aspects of the industry was still substantially low and charged international and local operating oil companies to collaborate with the NCDMB to achieve the new target.

Kachikwu described Nigerian Content as the future of the industry. According to him, “it doesn’t matter how much money we make, how much gas we produce or alternative fossils we produce; if we do not ensure that a lot of that is captured locally in terms of benefits, we have no stake.”

OIL PRICES FINALLY BREAK $60

With Brent prices briefly breaking the $60 mark on Friday morning, there is a cautious optimism in the oil market.

Oil prices rose strongly on Thursday before breaking two-year-highs on Friday. The price gains came after robust data from the EIA this week, plus rising confidence in an OPEC extension. But in recent times, oil prices have started to fall apart as they approach $60 per barrel, something that traders will be watching for again today. “It can’t really go above $60” a barrel, Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at UBS Wealth Management, told the WSJ. “If it goes too high, it’s an indication to U.S. shale producers to produce more oil.”

OPEC increasingly looking at extension through 2018. The WSJ reported that Saudi Arabia and Russia are leaning towards agreeing to extend their production limits through the end of 2018, a move that could be finalized at the upcoming meeting in Vienna on November 30. With those two countries on board, it would be likely that the rest would fall in line. Russian energy minister Alexander Novak warned earlier this week that Russia would boost output by 100,000 bpd next year if the agreement lapsed, while top Russian and Saudi officials also reassured the market about their intentions. “We don’t want to do anything that will shock the market…. and we won’t stop our efforts halfway,” Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters. Separately, al-Falih assured an orderly exit from the deal. “When we get closer to that (five-year average) we will decide how we smoothly exit the current arrangement, maybe go to a different arrangement to keep supply and demand closely balanced so we don’t have a return to higher inventories,” he told reporters. An extension through the end of next year is rapidly becoming the baseline assumption for the November meeting.