Nigeria’s crude oil production slipped in December from November as Africa’s top producer continues to struggle to pump to its full OPEC+ output quota amid operational challenges in its upstream sector.
While Iraq and Russia made a small amount of progress, it was dwarfed by overproduction in habitual quota-violator Kazakhstan, where the backlog expanded by more than 40%. OPEC+ delegates have said that Astana’s persistent offending motivated last month’s surprise policy shift that raised production faster than expected, as Riyadh seeks to discipline the cheats with lower oil prices.