OPEC crude basket price falls to $78.67pb

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries', OPEC, daily crude oil basket price has crashed from $80.64 to $78.67 per barrel at the global oil market.

The fall in price, the lowest in four years, was attributed to excess supply from OPEC member states (excluding Nigeria), especially Saudi Arabia Iraq and Iran, which have the capacity to pump more oil to the market.

The OPEC basket, which is the average price of crude oil blends from the 12 member countries, is just 67 cent above the 2015 proposed budget price of $78 per barrel.

However, the benchmark Brent crude price held at $82.82 per barrel while the US West Texas Intermediate was $77.19 at yesterday's trading. The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).

The cartel is due release its market outlook for the rest of the year and 2015 today. Falling prices and the inability of Nigeria to meet crude output projections have put pressure on the nation's fiscal position, with some foreign portfolio investors already pulling out of the stock market. Ministry of Petroleum Resources officials have put the current output at 2.2 million barrels per day, some 300,000 bpd short of the 2.5 million bpd projected for 2014. - National Mirror.