By Udeme Akpan

THE price of Bonny Light, which had risen to over $71 per barrel has dropped to $66.20 per barrel because of the negative International Energy Agency’s report.

“The Meeting reviewed the monthly report prepared by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC), including the crude oil production data for the month of February.

“It welcomed the positive performance of participating countries. Overall conformity with the original decision was 103 per cent, reinforcing the trend of aggregate high conformity by participating countries.

“The Meeting noted that since the April 2020 meeting, OPEC and non-OPEC countries had withheld 2.3bn barrels of oil by end of January 2021, accelerating the oil market rebalancing.

‘The Meeting extended special thanks to Nigeria for achieving full conformity in January 2021 and compensating its entire overproduced volumes.

“The ministers thanked HE Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of Nigeria, for his shuttle diplomacy as Special Envoy of the JMMC to Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and South Sudan to discuss matters pertaining to conformity levels with the voluntary production adjustments and compensation of over-produced volumes. In this regards the Ministers agreed to the request by several countries, which have not yet completed their compensation, for an extension of the compensation period until the end of July 2021.

“It urged all participants to achieve full conformity and make up for previous compensation shortfalls, to reach the objective of market rebalancing and avoid undue delay in the process. The Meeting observed that in December, stocks in OECD countries had fallen for the fifth consecutive month. The Meeting recognized the recent improvement in the market sentiment by the acceptance and the rollout of vaccine programs and additional stimulus packages in key economies, but cautioned all participating countries to remain vigilant and flexible given the uncertain market conditions, and to remain on the course which had been voluntarily decided and which had hitherto reaped rewards.”