E. Guinea posts zero oil export in May
Sopuruchi Onwuka
Crude oil export from Equatorial Guinea dropped to zero in the month of May in proportion to the country’s cumulative production in the same month.
Market sources quoting tanker tracking Petro-Logistics checked the box for zero export from Equatorial Guinea where new investments in production capacity has been elusive and also contributed to acute plunge in output.
The Oracle Today reports that Equatorial Guinea remains one of the weak producers in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The fiscal and operating regime in the country has not been able to attract the right set of investments in new exploration and development projects required to drive reserves replacement and stable production volumes.
In providing notes to marketing firms with windows on the international crude oil flow, Petro-Logistics pointed out that Equatorial Guinea is in the list of West African oil producing countries currently suffering investment drought and declining production.
Other West African producers and OPEC members, such as Nigeria and Angola, have also been struggling with falling crude oil output amid high costs and a lack of investment from oil majors in recent years.
Equatorial Guinea, which became a member of OPEC in 2017, pumped an average 289,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude back in 2015.
By April this year, production had shrunk to 59,000 bpd, which was still up by 11,000 bpd compared to March, according to secondary sources in OPEC’s latest Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) from May. In the first quarter of 2023, Equatorial Guinea’s crude oil production averaged 54,000 bpd, down from 90,000 in the third quarter of 2022 and an average of 98,000 bpd for the full year 2021.
Back in 2021, the country with around 1.45 million residents received half of all its export revenue from petroleum export revenue, according to OPEC data.
The largest oil producer in the country, ExxonMobil, plans to stop pumping crude in Equatorial Guinea and exit the country after its license expires in 2026.
West Africa has been a problematic investment for oil majors, considering the higher costs compared to more lucrative projects elsewhere and the high emissions profile of the projects.
