Niger Delta militants push global oil prices to $50 – highest in 2016

Oil prices eventually rose to a 2016 high on Thursday morning, hitting the highly anticipated $50 a barrel mark, following disruptions in Nigeria’s production levels.

The prices rose to a 7-month high on Thursday, as Brent, the global benchmark for crude oil, traded at $50.26 per barrel.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI), US oil, also rose to a 2016 high at $49.56 per barrel.

The price of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) basket of thirteen crudes stood at $44.02 a barrel on Tuesday, one of its highest points in 2016, according to OPEC secretariat calculations.

This is coming on the wings of disruptions in production from Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil exporter after Angola, saving the world an oversupply of 800,000 barrels per day.

Earlier in the month, Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, said disruptions led by militants is costing the nation as much as 800,000 barrels per day, reducing production to 1.4 million barrels per day.

Niger Delta Avengers, the major group responsible for the disruptions in the region, has carried out over four different attacks on oil terminals within two months.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) data has shown that the disruptions can cost Nigeria as much as $1 billion in May 2015.