National Assembly increases oil benchmark to $28 per barrel

The National Assembly on Tuesday increased the price of crude to $28 per barrel as against the $25 proposed by the executive.

This followed the consideration of a report of the Committees on Finance on the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Fiscal Strategy Paper.

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President Muhammadu Buhari, in separate letters to both chambers last Thursday, had said the revised N10.509trn 2020 budget was predicated on oil price benchmark of $25per barrel as against $57 per barrel fixed for the earlier one passed last December.

The National Assembly said it jerked up the crude oil price because of the recent upward trend in the oil market which, it said, currently stood at $38 per barrel with a very strong expectation that the price would rise to $40 to $45 per barrel.

Daily production output slashed to 1.8m barrels

The National Assembly, however, slashed the daily oil production output to 1.8 million barrels as against the 1.9 million proposed by the federal government.

This, it said, was the decision of cutting production by OPEC which Nigeria is a member.

The N360/US $1 as proposed in the MTEF amendment was sustained.

The sum of N500bn COVID-19 intervention fund and its utilization as proposed by the executive were also approved.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives called for the immediate scrapping of the Excess Crude Account, saying it had no legal backing.