Nigeria’s Nembe crude oil grade finds international market

Business a.m

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and Aiteo Joint Venture have announced the introduction of Nembe crude oil grade, a new crude oil grade into the international crude oil market.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by Mr Olufemi Soneye, the Chief Corporate Communications Officer (CCCO), of the state oil company on Wednesday.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and Aiteo Joint Venture have announced the launch of Nembe, a new crude oil grade, into the international crude oil market.

Olufemi Soneye,NNPC’s chief corporate communications officer (CCCO), said this in a statement on Wednesday.

NNPC said that 950,000 barrels of the new crude oil grade have already been exported to France and the Netherlands in two separate cargoes. The announcement was made at the Argus European crude conference in London on Tuesday.

OML 29, an onshore asset in Nigeria, is operated by Aiteo Eastern Exploration & Production Limited, Africa’s largest indigenous hydrocarbon producer. The company acquired OML 29 from Shell in 2014. The Nembe crude was previously blended with the popular Bonny Light grade and exported through the Bonny oil and gas terminal. Aiteo E&P and NNPC Limited’s leadership highlighted the unique selling point of the Nembe crude oil grade, which has an API gravity of 31 degrees, at the Argus conference in London.

According to the NNPC, the Nembe crude oil grade has a low sulphur content and a low carbon footprint due to the elimination of flare gas which  fits well into the specifications of major buyers in Europe. It stated further that the Nembe crude oil grade also commands a premium to the global Brent benchmark due to its attractive API of 29 and low sulphur content

“With the NNPC-Aiteo OML 29 JV back onstream, Nigeria now boasts of an additional crude oil export of 2 Cargoes at 950,000 barrels each per month and 1.2 Bcf of export gas monthly,” the statement added.

NNPC said this remarkable feat marks the beginning of operations at Nigeria’s newest crude oil terminal, the Nembe Crude Oil Export Terminal (NCOET), which was licensed in line with existing laws and regulations for establishing crude oil terminals. The terminal is a Floating Storage and Offloading Vessel (FSO) with a storage capacity of two million barrels and the ability to offload crude oil to any size export tanker.