The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation can produce crude oil at around US$20 a barrel, but there are plans to bring this even lower, to US$15 a barrel, the company’s group managing director Maikanti Baru told media. “The more we bring down the cost, the more the money that comes to the federal government and into the pockets of state and local governments,” Baru said. Nigeria has pledged to keep its oil production at 1.8 million barrels daily after OPEC asked it to join the cut efforts to bring down the global inventory overhang. Yet independent local producers are eager to boost their production by 250,000 bpd by 2020. That’s part of a plan to bring Nigeria’s total to 2.5 million barrels daily. At such low production costs, the urge to expand production makes perfect sense. The independents’ plans go counter to Nigeria’s pledge to support OPEC in its oversupply […]