THE federal government on Wednesday, approved the revised 2020 budget, adopting a benchmark of $25 per barrel after months of reviewing.

As of the third week of March, the country was contemplating revising the benchmark downward from $57 per barrel to $30 based on an estimated daily crude oil production of 2.18 million barrels.

Fiscal authorities have been grappling with deep fall in income as the government suggested last week that an 80 per cent in the projected net oil and gas revenue could trigger a slash of the fund available.

These funds are to be distributed among government tiers through the Federation Account Allocation Committee from the N5.5 trillion earlier proposed to N1.1 trillion.

Minister for finance Zainab Ahmed said the government is in the “process of an amendment that is bringing down the revenue indicator to $20 per barrel.”

“The council has approved our recommendations and the approval has these key parameters; the crude oil price is approved at $25 per barrel,” Ahmed added.

According to the minister, crude oil production is at 1.94 million barrels per day and then an exchange rate of N360 to $1.

The revised budget is now in the total sum of N10.523 trillion, a difference of about N71.5 billion when compared to the approved budget.

So the borrowing, the drawdown of the multilateral loan coming from special accounts, and coming from the privatisation will fund the fiscal deficit of N5.365 trillion that we have in the proposed amendment of the 2020 budget, the minister revealed.