West Africa on the up

Oil production will grow again in 2016, despite the downturn in prices

STRUGGLING for cash, Nigeria wants to boost oil production. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, head of state oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said in December that the country aimed to raise oil by 300,000 barrels a day in 2016. It’s not clear how this will happen – the government already says it is producing 2.1m b/d, conveniently almost 300,000 b/d above the number offered by secondary sources. President Muhammadu Buhari, elected last April, is trying to reform NNPC and improve the regulatory framework for oil and gas projects. From March, NNPC will replace crude oil swap agreements with direct crude sales to refiners and the purchase of refined products directly – an effort to