TheCable

Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, says Nigeria has got to a point where it does not care if oil prices rise or fall.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the minister said the country had learnt to live with oil prices at $45-$46 a barrel.

As of 2pm on Friday, Brent crude, the international benchmark of crude oil was trading at $70.20.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $65.51.

“We’ve gotten to a point where we don’t care whether prices will be sustained at the level that they have recently risen to.

“We’ve been able to balance our budget at $45-$46 per barrel and we’ve got to learn to live comfortably at that level.”

The minister said Nigeria cannot afford to rely on oil prices anymore.

“Yes, it’s at $66-$67 per barrel today, but we’ve been here before, right?” she asked.

“And we can’t afford to be exposed to that, so I really try very hard to ignore the oil price.”

The oil benchmark for the 2018 budget is $45 per barrel.

For the first time in 45 years, the federal government has projected that non-oil revenue will surpass oil revenue in 2018.

It is also seeking to plug an infrastructure gap of $25 billion.

On this, Adeosun said: “The infrastructure gap is significant, it is far bigger than anybody had imagined, in power, in roads, in rail.”