Brent, against which Nigeria’s crude oil is priced, dropped to $74.89 per barrel as of 6:40pm Nigerian time, while the United States’ West Texas Intermediate slumped by $1.50 to $66.38 per barrel. Following the rally in crude oil prices, the National Assembly increased the oil benchmark price for the 2018 budget to $51 per barrel from $45 proposed by the Executive. “Investors have started pricing in the likelihood of Saudi Arabia and Russia increasing crude oil production. Saudi Arabia and Russia have discussed raising OPEC and non-OPEC oil production by one million barrels per day to counter potential supply shortfalls from Venezuela and Iran. The pipeline, which supplies crude oil to the Forcados export terminal, has a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day.

Source: Punch May 29, 2018 23:48 UTC