Yesterday, oil reached new lows and closed under $27 a barrel. Those are prices that haven’t been seen since back in the 70s and most recently in 1998 prior to the dot.com economic crash. This obviously has a lot of countries nervous – especially Nigeria, Algeria and Angola – all of which have crude oil as a Major Revenue. According to International Business Times and the Wall Street Journal, below are some of the major countries suffering the brunt of these historically low prices:

Venezuela

Venezuela, the world’s ninth-largest oil exporter and holder of the biggest proven oil reserves now has a budget deficit of over 17 percent of its GDP. That’s worse than the deficits in Greece and Spain at the height of the euro-zone debt crisis.

Iran

Although Western sanctions imposed on Iran’s nuclear program have greatly reduced the country’s ability to export oil, now that those sanctions have been lifted, oil prices are about to hit yet another record low.

Nigeria

According to the IBT, Crude Oil accounts for  85 percent of Nigeria’s total revenues. This lack of economic diversity could potentially make Nigeria’s economy a bleak one. Unfortunately, Africa’s largest oil producer is now in a severe cash crunch.

Russia

Although Russia’s economy is not in as much trouble as compared to other countries, the country which loses up to $14.6 billion a year in revenues, for each $10 drop in crude oil prices could eventually fall into a recession if prices continue to slide.

Brazil

According to IBT, for each $1 drop in crude oil prices, Brazil stands to lose more than $900 million of cash from potential oil sales, based on calculations made by Reuters. With continued price drops, Brazil could forgo around $14 billion a year in potential cash from oil sales after royalties.

Mexico

Oil revenues from Mexico account for about one-third of the federal budget. For every $1 drop in the price of oil, Mexico loses about $300 million, the Financial Times reported.

 

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if the whole oil situation still seems a little confusing, the video below from Bloomberg Business should help put it in perspective.