Oil prices jumped above $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months after Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, said its energy facilities got attacked on Sunday, targeting “the security and stability” of global supplies.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose as much as 2.9 per cent to $71.38 a barrel on Monday morning in Asia while West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the US benchmark, rose by a similar margin to a high of $67.98 a barrel.
Experts say the development, for Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is both good and bad news. Good that more foreign exchange would be earned by the Federal government to finance the budget.
Bad because it’s going to push up the pump price of premium motor spirit (PMS) in the domestic market.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, had urged Nigerians to brace for a jump in the pump price of petrol when oil price rose to $60 per barrel.
The Federal government and Labour are currently in talks to avert a backlash which a hike in petrol price would inevitably result to.
Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi fighters claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they had also focused on military targets in the Saudi cities of Dammam, Asir and Jazan.
A Houthi military spokesperson said the group had fired 14 bomb-laden drones and eight ballistic missiles in a “wide operation in the heart of Saudi Arabia”
– Agency Report