LAGOS, Nigeria (AFX) - Nigeria is cutting oil exports by 5 percent amid falling oil prices, in a move a spokesman for the state-owned oil company described on Saturday as a routine seasonal reduction.
World oil prices have dropped to six-month lows in recent days as demand slackens with the end of summer travel in major oil consuming regions.
The cuts announced by Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. Friday take 115,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Nigeria's current OPEC quota of 2.3 million barrels daily, company spokesman Levi Ajuonuma said. The reduction was to begin on Sunday.
The move coincides with the decision of another OPEC member, Venezuela, to cut its exports by 50,000 barrels, but Nigeria dismissed suggestions it was acting in concert with any other country.
'It's not a gang-up,' Ajuonuma said. 'It's individual nations doing what they think they should do in their own interest.'
Such measures are usually routine at this time of the year, he said. Refiners often decrease their output to conduct maintenance during the slow season.
Light sweet crude for November delivery rose 15 cents to settle Friday at US$62.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where prices have fallen 20 percent since mid-July.
While OPEC decided earlier this month to hold to a 28 million barrel a day output quota, many traders say the group would like to rein in production if crude-oil futures drop much lower than US$60 a barrel.
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