MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Nigeria, which has recently suffered from oil production outages due to militant activity in the Niger Delta, has been seeking to boost output to make up for the shortfall in revenue. In June, Kachikwu announced plans to increase oil production from the current level of 1.6 million barrels per day up to 2.2 million barrels per day until the end of 2016.
"On oil production cuts by OPEC, optimism on my part is quite sparse but I believe engagement with the 70% oil producers might have impact," Kachikwu wrote on his official Twitter account on Monday.
In April, major oil-producing countries failed to reach an agreement in the Qatari capital of Doha to freeze output at the then-levels for the rest of the year in order to boost prices from historic lows of $30-45 per barrel they have hovered around since January amid a glut in supply. Riyadh, which had previously said that it would freeze output only if Iran followed suit, cited Tehran’s absence from the talks as reason for not supporting an output freeze.
