Two African members of the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries, Angola and Nigeria, have defied the organization’s plans to cut output and demanded that their production quotas be raised, Reuters reported on Thursday.
An ensuing dispute forced OPEC+ member states to postpone a scheduled meeting at which they were expected to discuss further output cuts, a development that sent oil prices sliding, the news agency said.
Both benchmarks, WTI and Brent, dropped dramatically on Wednesday after the meeting was delayed. As of Friday, WTI was trading at around $76.8 per barrel and Brent at roughly $81.8 per barrel.
According to Reuters, Angola and Nigeria are each aiming for higher oil outputs, with Angola’s OPEC+ governor Estevao Pedro saying that his country was “fighting” to increase production.
In recent years, the two countries were failing to meet their quotas and at OPEC+’s last meeting, in June, they were given lower production targets as part of the bloc’s broad deal to limit supply into 2024.
However, the African countries now reportedly want to have their production quotas raised from those agreed levels. According to Angola’s OPEC+ representative, investment was now “being made” to enable the country to raise its oil output.
The OPEC+ meeting about next year’s production policy will now take place next Thursday, Reuters reports. Several analysts polled by the news agency have predicted that the group will most likely extend or even deepen oil-supply cuts into next year.
OPEC+ members, including major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, have pledged to cut their oil output, in a series of steps that started in late 2022. This was done in order to stabilize the global oil market, which had a volatile year due to sanctions against major oil producer Russia, and to support crude prices.
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