Crude oil sells at $78.24 as output peaks

• China guarantees $2.8b for NNPC’s pipeline project
Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) last month produced 32.74 million barrels of crude oil per day, as price rose sharply to $78.24.

Considering the looming impact of the trade war between the United States and other major economies, including Iran, China and the European Union, OPEC’s output witnessed an increase of 420,000 barrels a day from July.

The output in August, propelled by Libya, remains the highest the cartel has achieved this year.

The price of Brent went up by about 60 cents to sell at $78.24 a barrel, while U.S. crude went up by 15 cents to trade at $69.95.

The sharp increase was linked to mounting concerns that falling Iranian output could tighten markets once U.S. sanctions bite from November.

OPEC and other allies had in June agreed to increase combined output by one million barrels a day to meet consumer demand and prevent a sharp rise in prices.

Libya produced the highest quota of the output pumping as much as 970,000 barrels a day last month compared to 660,000 barrels a day in July, a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data said.

However, the North African nation’s biggest oil field, Sharara, has begun operation after an attack.

The second-largest production increase came from Iraq and the United Arab Emirate with each raising daily oil output by 80,000 barrels during the period under review.

Iran suffered the biggest drop across the group with a decline of 240,000 barrels a day, pushing its production down to 3.5 million barrels a day.

Though the sanctions are officially taking in November, Iran is already seeing customers flee as the U.S. imposes penalties on buyers after President Donald Trump backed out of a 2015 nuclear accord with the country, Bloomberg reported.

Top exporter, Saudi Arabia, increased its production by 20,000 barrels a day from a revised level of 10.37 million daily output a month earlier.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), yesterday, said the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) had pledged a $2.8 billion grant for its Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project.

It said the commitment was made during a high-level meeting between both agencies on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Beijing.