A senior executive of Nigeria's national oil company NNPC told reporters on Tuesday that Nigeria would be able meet OPEC production targets.

Udobong Nitia is the executive vice president for upstream at NNPC. He said that after years of not meeting OPEC quotas Nigeria finally met them in January.

"I think that we are back on track in January" "I'm confident we will be able meet our targets," Ntia told the CERAWeek Conference by S&P Global, in Houston.

The production increased to 1.75 millions barrels per days (bpd) in January, up from 1.5 million bpd.

Ntia stated that "production is increasing."

Although there was concern that Nigeria had exceeded its quota for January, he felt the country was on track as both crude oil and condensate were produced.

A survey revealed that OPEC's oil production fell for the second consecutive month in January, in part due to a decline in Nigerian exports.

A survey conducted last month revealed that Nigerian production, which had recovered in December, was at the same level in January. This means there is still work to be done if Nigeria wants to reach its target of 1.6 million barrels per day this quarter.

The survey revealed that Nigerian production fell by 60,000 bpd due to lower exports. However, domestic consumption is on the rise as the Dangote Refinery ramps up. Reporting by Arathy S. Somasekhar, Houston. Editing by Marguerita C. Choy

(source: Reuters)