The National Assembly yesterday settled on $53 per barrel as the official oil benchmark for the 2015 budget. This development comes after a meeting where both chambers of the National Assembly converged to deliberate based on their respective positions on the 2015 budget benchmark.

According to a report by business analysis website, Nairametrics, the Senate had earlier agreed on $52 whereas House of Representative approved $54 per barrel as benchmark for Oil, and an exchange rate of N190 to $1 for the year. The National Assembly also cut down its budget from N150 billion ($751 million) to N120 billion ($600 million), a difference of N30 billion ($150,338,400).

The Nigerian Senate Committee on Finance had last month confirmed that it effected a 20 percent slash of the oil price benchmark today to review the 2015 Budget to $52 per barrel from its current $65.