The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) announced on Tuesday that it has introduced a new crude oil grade called ‘Nembe’ and has already shipped its inaugural cargo in October, comprising two shipments of 950,000 barrels each.

The first cargoes of this new grade were reportedly sold to France and the Netherlands, according to Maryamu Idris, the executive director of crude and condensate at NNPC Trading, who made the statement during the Argus European Crude conference in London.

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Nembe is described as a low-sulfur crude oil grade with a distillate-rich profile, similar to other well-known grades such as Forcados, Bonga, and Egina.

This new grade commands a premium over the global Brent benchmark, making it competitive with Brazilian and Azeri crude grades for European refiners.

The production of Nembe stands at around 50,000 barrels per day.

However, NNPC aims to increase production to 80,000 barrels per day by the first quarter of the next year and eventually reach 150,000 barrels per day by the beginning of 2025.

This development comes as Nigeria has experienced a recovery in crude oil production, which has risen from a low of 900,000 barrels per day in September to 1.3 million barrels per day last month.

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Speaking at the Pre-Conference workshop of the 41st 2023 conference of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists in Lagos, Austin Avuru, Chairman of AA Holdings, emphasized that the Federal Government would require approximately $21 billion in annual investments to achieve a crude oil production level of 3 million barrels per day by 2027.

The investment would be essential to fund oil exploration and reach this production target.