The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has said the current oil prices and production levels will affect some capital projects in the nation’s 2017 budget.
The minister gave this warning on Wednesday at a press conference held in Abuja.
He however said government was looking for ways of fulfilling the promises of the budget.
Said he: “In terms of the budget impact, definitely, I mean, it is predicated on the number of 2.2 million barrels per day and a price index of 42.50 dollars. Within the price cap, I think we’re still reasonably within range,” he said.
“Obviously we have lost quite a lot of months, some months, at least, two or three in which we did not produce what the budget had projected, so there is definitely going to be differential.
“Like you know, the Ministry of Finance is aggressively looking for ways to cover some of these shortfalls; part of that is efficiency, how do we cut down our expenditure?
“Obviously, certain capital items will be affected; if we do not have money, we cannot do certain capital projects that we have in the budget.
“There is no gainsaying the fact that budget will be impacted but we are working hard with the Federal Executive Council to see how we can forecast or predict that sort of impact and see how we can recover.”
While giving the assurance that Nigeria would continue to work with others in ensuring that the global oil market remained stable, he revealed that he had received invitation to the next Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee Meeting of the OPEC and Non-OPEC Accord Countries.
The meeting is billed to hold in St Petersburg, Moscow, on24th July, 2017.
He said he would however not be able to attend the meeting as he would be hosting Ministers of Petroleum of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation countries at the same time in Nigeria.
