Angola rejects OPEC+ oil production quota with plans to break it
(Bloomberg) – Angola won’t stick to the new quota handed to it by OPEC and will produce above the target, a top oil official said.
A spat over African members’ quotas delayed the OPEC meeting by four days, and a decision was finally reached on Thursday. But after a review — pledged back in June after another fraught meeting — Angola has been handed a quota it doesn’t think is fair.
“We will produce above the quota determined by OPEC,” Angola’s OPEC governor Estevao Pedro said in an interview on Thursday. “It is not a matter of disobeying OPEC; we presented our position, and OPEC should take it into consideration.”
Angola, Africa’s second-largest crude producer, will produce 1.18 MMbpd from January, above the 1.11 MMbpd quota set out in the OPEC agreement on Thursday.
In June, Angola, Congo and Nigeria were pushed by Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman to accept reduced output targets for 2024 that reflected their diminished production capabilities. The deal in June was only reached after the countries were promised a review. But the review reflected lower capacity — and as a result a lower quota.
Pedro said last week that the country would remain an OPEC member despite the dispute. On Thursday, he sounded less sure.
“The question of whether Angola remains in the OPEC is a decision at the highest level of authority,” he said.
Lead image source: Chevron
