President Yar'Adua yesterday received a request from Benin Republic for Nigeria to increase crude oil supply to the country.
The action followed his meeting at the Presidential Villa with the Beninoise President, Boni Yayi.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Odein Ajumogobia, who was at the meeting, told State House correspondents at the end of the meeting that Yayi asked for an increase in supply from 15,000 to 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
"The issue (meeting) concerns petroleum products. You know, even in Nigeria here we are suffering from the high price of the product and in other countries, especially the non-oil producing countries, they have difficulties in meeting their obligations.
"There was a request to renew an agreement that expired in 2007. We had a bilateral agreement with the Republic of Benin for the supply of products and crude oil. The quantity was 15,000 bpd; they are asking for 50,000 bpd", explained the minister.
Ajumogobia said he would be meeting with the Beninoise oil minister to work out details of the quantity of petroleum products to be supplied.
Nigeria had also extended a similar agreement to Ghana.
Ajumogobia declared that such favours would be granted to other neighbouring countries, based on several factors, particularly on their needs and Nigeria's constraints.
According to him, "We can't obviously meet all requests and that's why Mr. President said we should sit down with our counterpart ministers and review their requests and see what we can do, given our own constraints.
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"We have to look at what we are doing currently, how much we are producing. As you know, the issue of what we produce is fluctuating. So we have to look at what we have and what is available and what we can do."
Copyright, Blaise APLOGAN, 2008, © Bienvenu/welcome on Go Benin
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