…says Oil production drops to 1.4m bpd
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has pleaded with Nigerians to bear with the government on the recent increase in the pump price of petrol from N148 to N151.56.
He also disclosed that the nation’s crude oil production has drop from 2m barrels per day (bpd) to 1.412m bpd.
He said before COVID-19, oil prices were in the territory of over $60 per barrel but they have fallen to more, than $45 per barrel.
He admitted that Nigeria was going through a crisis and it was time to adjust.
Sylva, who spoke at a joint briefing with the Minister of Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed and the Minister of Power, Mr. Saleh Mamman in Abuja, said successive governments had tried to handle the removal of subsidy without success.
He said: “Please let us be realistic as Nigerians. If you have a situation where you have lost 60 per cent of your national income due to no fault of yours, because in the whole world nobody prepared for COVID-19.
“Demand for crude oil completely dropped because all countries in the world were on lockdown at the same time.
“I mean, that is very easy for all of us to understand. If every country was on lockdown then, no country was really functioning at the time. So there was no demand for crude oil.
