Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, H.E. Timipre Sylva, told Turkish news agency, Anadolu Agency in an interview on Friday that OPEC does not have the additional spare capacity to raise crude oil output much higher than it is already.

Nigeria, like many other OPEC producers, is currently pumping at maximum capacity. According to the minister, OPEC does not like high oil prices because it wants prices that do not harm its crude users, but the organization cannot do much more to pump more.

Excerpts from his interview: “It is not something that you can open a tap for at this point. You must have the additional capacity, the idle capacity to bring on, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of investment for it to have additional production.”

“If there is anything we can do to produce more, OPEC will be the first to produce more. But unfortunately, this capacity doesn’t exist in most OPEC countries.”

According to Reuters last month, the OPEC+ group continued to underperform in terms of oil production levels compared to the pact’s aim, with February output more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) below the collective quota and a compliance rate of 136%.

According to figures from Iraqi national oil marketing firm SOMO reviewed by Reuters, OPEC’s second-largest producer produced barely 4.15 million bpd of crude oil in March, much below its quota under the OPEC+ deal. In recent weeks, oil production in Russia, OPEC’s important partner in the OPEC+ accord, has also exhibited symptoms of decline.