THE positive forecast of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, may have driven the price of Nigeria’s Bonny Light to $92.24 per barrel in the international market.

This comes at the backdrop of slight drop in the prices of world’s leading crude oil grades with Brent closing at to $89.93 down from $90.82 last weekend and WTI trading at    $87.01 per barrel against $87.76 per barrel weekend.

Despite oil cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia, prices had dropped below $85 per barrel last week, after climbing toward $100 per barrel for weeks.

But most energy analysts believe oil prices would trend upwards if the ongoing Israeli and Hamas conflict escalates.

At the current $92.24 per barrel, Nigeria earns an excess of $17.24 per barrel when compared to the $75 per barrel benchmark price of the 2023 budget which was also based on 1.69 million barrels per day.

However, in its October 2023 Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR, obtained by Vanguard, OPEC, stated: “The world oil demand growth forecast for 2023 remains unchanged at 2.4 mb/d. downward revisions in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, are due to actual data for the first three quarters, while upward revisions in non-OECD in the 2Q23 and 3Q23 are due to higher-than-expected growth, mainly from China”.