Opec committee to meet Nigeria, Libya officials

Officials from Nigeria and Libya will attend an Opec technical committee meeting later this month to discuss latest developments in their crude production levels, the Kuwait oil minister said today.

But this will not involve talking about imposing a cap on the two countries' output, Issam al-Marzouq said here on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress.

Supply has been rising from Nigeria and Libya, neither of which are party to the production limit agreement struck between Opec and 10 non-Opec states. Opec production rose to its highest this year in June, when Libya and Nigeria increased their output on the month by a combined 270,000 b/d.

Al-Marzouq said the oil ministers of Nigeria and Libya had been invited to the next meeting of the output deal's high level monitoring committee — the JMMC — on 24 July, but a prior commitment for Nigerian minister Ibe Kachikwu meant this will now be a meeting of technical personnel "to discuss their production."

"We did not talk about capping, but at least we can talk about production plans right now", al-Marzouq said.

Al-Marzouq said the output deal needs time before its success or otherwise can be assessed, and he said talk of how to exit the deal when it expires in March is "not on our agenda".

"We are still in the first two weeks of the extension — it is too early to talk about an exit strategy", he said. "We have to give [the deal] some time, maybe a month or two".

Earlier, Russian oil minister Alexander Novak said plans for a gradual and orderly restoration of production have not yet been formally discussed but the idea has been floated.