Nigeria
needs an oil price of $139 a barrel to balance its budget this year, Fitch
Ratings Ltd said on Thursday.
Fitch, an
international rating agency, in an April 5 report, said Nigeria has the worst
situation among 14 major oil exporting nations in the Middle East, Africa and
emerging Europe.
Bloomberg
reports that the agency said Kuwait is in the best position of major oil
exporting nations to have a balanced government budget this year with oil
forecast to average $52.50 a barrel.
The report
noted that even after cuts in government subsidies and currency devaluations,
11 of them won’t have balanced government budgets this year, including Saudi
Arabia.
“Fiscal
reforms and exchange rate adjustments are generally supporting improved fiscal
positions compared to 2015, but have not prevented erosion of sovereign
creditworthiness,” the rating agency said.
It explained
further that only Kuwait, Qatar and the Republic of Congo have estimated
break-evens that are below Fitch’s oil price forecast for this year.
Kuwait at
$45 a barrel traditionally has a low break-even because of its high per-capita
hydrocarbon production and more recently its “large estimated investment
income” from its sovereign wealth fund, Fitch added.
Earlier,
Brent crude, a global benchmark, averaged about $55 a barrel for 2017.
The rating
agency said it “substantially” raised the fiscal break-even prices for Nigeria,
Angola and Gabon from 2015 levels because of rising government spending.
A breakdown
of the Fitch forecast 2017 break-even oil prices per barrel shows that Nigeria
was pegged at $139, Bahrain at $84, Angola at $82, and Oman at $75.
Others are
Saudi Arabia at $74, Russia at $72, Kazakhstan at $71, and Gabon at $66; as
well as Azerbaijan at $66, Iraq at $61, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at
$60, Republic of Congo at $52, Qatar at $51 and Kuwait at $45.
(NAN)
No comments:
Post a Comment