ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s parliament on Thursday approved a 4 trillion naira ($9.6 billion) petrol subsidy after President Muhammadu Buhari asked for additional funds to offset higher global oil prices driven by the conflict in Ukraine.
Buhari last week requested the extra money in a letter to parliament, saying the 443 billion naira earlier budgeted for the subsidy would no longer be enough given a jump in oil prices and lower crude production at home.
The Senate and House of Representatives separately agreed to raise its 2022 oil price benchmark – the assumed oil price for calculating the 2022 budget – to $73 per barrel from $62.
They also agreed to a cut in projected crude production by 283,000 barrels per day to 1.6 million bpd, and to reductions in the cost of federally funded upstream projects.
Nigeria now expected a higher budget deficit of 7.35 trillion or 3.99% of GDP that will be funded by new borrowings from the domestic market.
(Reporting by Camillus Eboh, Editing by MacDonald Dzirutwe and David Holmes)
