Nigeria commends Saudi Arabia on crude oil production cut

… receives 292 Nigerian evacuees from Saudi Arabia

Federal Government of Nigeria has commended the Saudi Arabia government over the country’s voluntary reduction in its daily crude production by over one million barrel. The commendation was given in a statement issued by Timipre Sylva, minister of state for petroleum resources. The Saudi Arabian government had in the recent past, acted in compliance with the resolutions of a meeting by OPEC+ member states on April 12, 2020 by cutting its daily production supply by well over a million barrel. It was agreed at the meeting to cut up to about 10mb/d as a measure of preventing a further drop in the global price of crude, which at the time was sliding towards an all-time low of $10 per barrel. It is by such difficult sacrifices made by the Saudi government and a few other OPEC members that the global economy can recover faster than envisaged, he said, adding that the gradual revamp of crude oil prices is not unconnected with the timely sacrifices by the Saudi Arabian government and other OPEC and NON-OPEC members. The minister restated Nigeria’s commitment to the April 12, 2020, OPEC+ resolutions regardless of mounting challenges. Meanwhile, the Federal Government has received another batch of 292 Nigerians stranded in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia following the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Minister of foreign affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, stated this in his Twitter handle @Geoffrey Onyeama, stressing that a large number of the evacuees were nursing mothers and children. The minister tweeted this Wednesday morning: “We received 292 evacuees stranded in Saudi Arabia yesterday. The Saudi Government transported them to Abuja. A large number of them are nursing mothers and children and they are all comfortably settled in hotels under the mandatory 14 days of quarantine”. The Federal Government has earlier repatriated about 600 Nigerians from the UAE, UK and the US out of the nearly 4,000 Nigerians that have expressed interests to return home from different parts of the world following the COVID-19 pandemic.