Nigeria will plunge into another round of economic recession in two months if the price of crude oil in international market continues to dwindle, Joseph Nwakwue, Chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council, disclosed this yesterday.
Nwakwue spoke in Lagos at a pre-event press conference of the association, where he also lamented that the low oil price was accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic with attendant low foreign exchange prices and spiralling import bills.
He explained that while COVID -19 had eaten deep into the fabric of global economy, advanced countries have buffers and lending ability contain the impact of the shock, while Nigeria lacks the two instruments to safeguard its economy.
Nwakwue spoke on the oil exploration landscape in Nigeria during post COVID-19 era, saying the outlook was gloomy given the relatively low forecasted oil prices and prevailing high unit costs in Nigeria.
He added: “But things could fundamentally change if we passed a fiscally competitive Petroleum Industry Bill, or if carried out a bid round with most of the prospective blocks in the basket, or if we removed some of the bottlenecks to investment flows “.
