OpeOluwani Akintayo
17 May 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Following rising oil prices at the international market, the Nigeria’s National Assembly has increased the crude oil benchmark price in the country’s 2018 budget from $45 per barrel to $51 per barrel.
The increase was made while passing the Appropriation Bill into law.
According to the Senate Appropriation Committee Chairman, Danjuma Goje, the increase of $6pb was done in collaboration with the executive arm of government.
Estimated expenditure proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari when he submitted the Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly six months ago was also raised to N9.12 trillion, an increase of N508 billion from the N8.6 trillion proposed by the president.
Goje explained that the oil production level and exchange rate were left the way the executive proposed them at 2.3 million barrels per day and N305 to a dollar respectively.
Highlights of the budget as passed by the National Assembly included Aggregate expenditure of N9,120,334,988,225; Statutory Transfers N530,427,363,624; Debt Service N2,203,835,365,699; Recurrent Expenditure N3,512,677,902,077; Capital Expenditure N2,873,400,351,825. Fiscal Deficit N1,954,464,993,775; Deficit to GDP 1.73%.
International oil benchmark, Brent edged up to $80.03 per barrel on Thursday from $79.33 at previous close.
Findings by SweetcrudeReport on Monday showed that Nigeria’s crude oil grade, Bonny Light, increased by $5.70 between March and April this year.
According to statistics from the OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR for May released on Monday, Bonny Light climbed from $67.05 in March to $72.75 in April, an 8.5 percent increase.
Bonny Light sold for $53.75 in 2017, and $68.98 earlier this year.
