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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The N47.9 trillion national budget approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), for the 2025 fiscal year, premised on 2.08 million bpd and oil price benchmark of $75 per barrel may run into murky waters.
This assertion was made by the chief executive officer of Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, who also described the budget figure as too ambitious.
Chukwu said both the oil price benchmark of $75 per barrel and oil production figure of 2.08 million barrels per day are not realistic.
He said the election of Donald Trump as the United States President, signals a major threat to the oil market.
He added that the US, being the largest oil producer in the world, wouldn’t relent and would increase production under Trump, thereby causing a decline in oil price.
Besides, he said he doubts if Nigeria could attain an oil production figure of 2.08 million barrels per day, considering the current production level.
Chukwu also expressed the view that the country may be confronted with revenue challenges if it fails to hit both the oil price and production benchmarks.
He equally faulted the exchange rate projection of N1, 400 to $1, saying that at the moment, the official exchange window is more than N1,400 to $1, querying how the government arrived at that figure.
“Once we fail to meet these projections, then we should be ready for more borrowing which will further put the economy under pressure.
“Growing our oil production from the current level to 2.08 million bpd translates to about 30% growth. That is quite ambitious, I must say.”
