Nigeria Commits to OPEC Agreements

Nigeria is committed to full implementation of agreements among OPEC and non-OPEC members, its minister of state for petroleum said on Sunday, ahead of an OPEC meeting in Vienna.

Timipre Sylva said he had told Saudi Energy Minister bin Salman that Nigeria's compliance had improved substantially since August. Prince Abdulaziz serves as chairman of the OPEC and non-OPEC joint ministerial monitoring committee.

OPEC ministers meet among themselves in Vienna on December 5, and then meet non-OPEC members on December 6, to decide what to do about the current agreement to limit output, which expires in March, Sylva's ministry said in a statement.

The meeting in Vienna would also review the outlook for the oil market for the first half of 2020.

The statement said demand was set to ease next year while production from non-members could rise, confronting OPEC with a decision about whether to cut output harder to support prices.

Sylva said OPEC member countries had consistently met and exceeded their targets for production cuts, and that Nigeria had achieved 100% compliance in November. This had brought stability to oil markets, he said.

Nigeria's crude production in the third quarter stood at 2.04 million barrels per day, its highest since the first quarter of 2016, which helped its economy grow 2.28% in the three months to September, its statistics office said.

(Reporting by Libby George; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Kevin Liffey)