Kachikwu seeks a global oil cartel to keep crude oil prices high

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu is seeking more active collaboration of crude oil producers globally in a bid to keep crude oil prices high.

Nigeria is highly dependent on crude oil revenues, which best of times make up 70 percent of government revenues and more than 90 percent of export earnings. A higher crude oil price is positive for the Nigerian economy and usually boosts government’s spending capacity, hence Kachikwu’s desire for higher crude oil prices globally.

Kachikwu expressed this desire for global collaboration for higher crude oil prices while speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Kachikwu, who is currently in the US seeking to win more investments from US based International Oil Companies into Nigeria, said he hopes that eventually, OPEC producers will be able to convince shale oil producers in the US to join non-OPEC producers like Russia to mutually agree on production quotas that will sustain current gains in crude oil prices.

“Ultimately, the world will have to be collaborative in this, in firming up this market. The more stable the market is, the better for everybody” Kachikwu said in the Bloomberg TV interview.