Oil prices have surged by around 5% to $68 a barrel after global oil cartel OPEC+ agreed to rollover its current production quotas for all members except Russia and Kazakhstan. The improving price recovery offers hope of future rises to OPEC’s African member states, whose economies have been battered by a sustained period of low oil prices worsened by the pandemic, but commits them to strict measures to rein in their production. Strict quota targets will continue to prevent OPEC’s African members, including Algeria, Angola, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria, from pumping excess oil to make up for budgetary shortfalls. Libya, also a member, is exempt from the quotas. OPEC’s 13 members pumped 24.89m barrels per day (bpd) in February, according to a Reuters survey, down 870,000 bpd from January. Under the latest agreement OPEC will keep about 8m bpd of crude production off the market for another month.
SOURCE: AFRICAN BUSINESS
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