The prices of crude oil dropped after official figures showed a significant rise in the gasoline inventories of the United States.
The price of Brent crude, the grade at which Nigeria’s crude oil is benchmarked, decreased by 0.41 percent and stood at $62.89 a barrel as of Thursday afternoon.
The US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also declined by 0.65 percent, to $59.38 a barrel.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) had earlier mentioned that the crude oil inventories for the week ended April 2, excluding those in the strategic petroleum reserve, dropped by 3.5 million barrels from the previous week.
However, Gasoline stocks rose by 4 million barrels to just over 230 million barrels.
“Refiners may want to pull back on the run rate a bit to keep gasoline storage from challenging the all-time record,” Reuters quoted Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities to have said.
The 2021 budget, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari last December, was based on an oil price benchmark of $40 per barrel and a production level of 1.86 million barrels per day.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had also projected a growth of 2.5 percent for Nigeria in 2021 from 1.5 percent announced in January.
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