The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, on Monday, said Nigeria has cut its crude oil production level from over 2 million barrels a day to 1.4m barrels in compliance with the quota endorsed by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Sylva said this at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while fielding questions from State House reporters shortly after a closed door meeting that lasted for almost one hour with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister was reacting to a question on the impact of the latest hike in the price of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly known as petrol on the ordinary Nigerians.
He restated that the government could not fix pump price again since the product supply had been deregulated.
“These are not the best of times not only for Nigeria but for the global community. Why do we have to do this? It is clearly impossible for the government to continue to subsidize. The money is not there now. Just take the example of our production levels, our crude oil production level was over 2 million barrels a day, today, to comply with OPEC cut and quota, we have reduced production to 1.4 million barrels. Having reduced production to 1.4 million barrels, crude oil is also not selling at an optimal rate .Where do you get the money to continue to subsidize.”
He also said the earnings of the government have reduced by 60 per cent and what is happening in the oil sector reflects what is happening elsewhere.
Sylva, who said his meeting with President Buhari as the Minister of Petroleum was routine, added that the recent hike in the global crude oil price was attributable to the announcement of a vaccine for COVID-19 by Pfizer.
“If the price of crude oil goes up, then it means the price of the feedstock has gone higher. It will also affect the price of the refined product and that is why you see that product prices are usually not static. It depends on the price of crude oil, which goes up and down.”
