Nigeria rules out cutting oil production

Nigerian authorities said Wednesday the country will not cut oil production even as nosediving crude prices caused by a global supply glut ravage revenue.

US crude oil prices tumbled to a 12-year low Tuesday, prompting OPEC member Nigeria to call for an emergency meeting to address collapsing prices that have drained the coffers of Africa's largest economy.

Nigeria's junior oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said in Abu Dhabi he expected an extraordinary meeting of the global oil cartel in "early March" to discuss the continued plunge in prices.

But until the meeting is formally confirmed, Nigeria can do little in response to the collapsing price of crude, said Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) marketing head Mele Kolo Kyari.

"Nigeria cannot stop the prices of crude from going down," he told AFP in Abuja.

"The easiest thing to do is to control production but Nigeria can only do that through the OPEC framework and the last OPEC meeting did not agree to cut down production.

"So influencing the price through production is now out of the question."

Saudi-led Gulf exporters within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have so far refused to cut production to curb sliding prices, seeking to protect their market share despite a heavy blow to their revenues.

Nigeria, Africa's number one producer, has been ravaged by the slump, with crude accounting for 90 percent of the nation's export earnings and 70 percent of overall government revenue.