$70/barrel good for Nigeria’s fiscal planning - Sylva

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said if oil prices remain within the$60 and $70 per barrel, it will be good for the country’s fiscal planning and budget implementation in the current year.

Sylva, who made this remark in an interview with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, said there was much optimism for the oil market with anticipated growth in demand in the months ahead.

The minister said: “We will like it to be between the 60s, the upper 60s and be up to 70. OPEC has never really wanted oil price to be raised and we don’t want it to be below certain levels.”

The Organisation Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with Russia-led non-OPEC members had in 2018 agreed to reduce at least 1.2 million barrels per day oil in the market from January 2019 in order to boost prices.

Nigeria, an OPEC member was initially exempted from the cuts but later joined around

September.

Sylva said the country was now committed to complying fully with its new production quota.

According to him, last month Nigeria did exactly what the supply quota stipulated, assuring that the country is going to comply onward.

Sylva explained that it was difficult for the country to comply at the start because of adjustment problems, adding, however, that “with this new budget all the adjustments have been taken into consideration that is why it is easier for us now in 2020.”