Chief Timipre Sylva, The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, says COVID-19 had helped to reduce the cost of crude oil production in the country.
According to the Minister “We have reduced the cost of production successfully.
“Recently, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Department of Petroleum Resources have launched programmes on cost reduction and it has impacted the sector.
“Both programmes have helped to bring down the cost of production, but what also helped us in reducing the cost of production is from a very unlikely quarter and that is COVID-19.
“Also, the fact that a lot of expatriates left because of COVID-19 made our locals to step in and of course, the locals are cheaper and we had to find local solutions to some of our problems.
The minister stated that the daily consumption of petrol in the country is about 66 million litres per day.
He attributed the spike in volume to activities of smugglers, saying that it was not a regular situation and could not be used as a measure to determine the volume of daily consumption.
He added that government would continue to work with security agencies to ensure smuggling of petroleum products was eliminated in the country. (NAN)