December 28, 2015 – Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu is intensifying efforts at eradicating the noticeable fuel queues across the country with sustained truck-out of petrol to the nooks and crannies of the country.
With relative product stability in some major cities like Abuja, Kano and Lagos, the intervention is trucking-out large volumes of petrol to the hinterlands and deep country side where product distribution remains a challenge.
Despite the public holidays, over 22 million litres of petrol was trucked-out nationwide within the last 24 hours with a bulk of the volumes hauled to fuel stations in the countryside to ensure adequate product penetration, the NNPC said in a statement signed by Group Corporate Affairs Manager, Mr. Ohi Alegbe.
Meanwhile Kachikwu has shed more light on the issue of price modulation and subsidy removal, assuring Nigerians that the Federal Government will place more emphasis on products availability, refineries’ efficiency noting that the price of petrol will not be fluctuating but based on an average price mechanism.
The Minister who spoke during a working tour of the Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Company (KRPC) on Sunday also assured Nigerians that the NNPC is working hard towards ensuring that full efficiency returns to the nation’s refineries which are expected to produce about 10m liters of petrol per day by January 2016.
“The president is very emphatic on this, he says for now; he expects that products should be about N87. He has also given approval for us to be able to look at market trends and make adjustments as need be.
“My commitment and I think that is what the president’s commitment is, is to provide products at all the time so that there is efficiency, and provide it at the least possible price possible and let it have some relationship with what the trends are,” Kachikwu stated.
He however observed that when the prices of petroleum begin to go up, government will look at those trends and then begin to see how the prices could be adjusted.
“We are not going to be fluctuating prices day to day, we are going to take like an average and I think that today when you look at prices, we have no subsidy but prices remain low and that is what we need to do. It is the honesty in being able to sell products to Nigerians at affordable prices that make sense, ” Kachikwu added.
Explaining further, Kachikwu said that subsidy doesn’t exist at the moment as petrol is still sold at N87 per liter, but in January 2016, government will look at what the trend is and announce prices. “If that is less than N87, we will announce it and if it is more than that, we will have to announce it,” he said.
He reiterated that the federal government would no longer continue to fund the gap paid on subsidy, which runs into huge amount of money.
“I think everybody is on the same page with us that as much as it is, we need to get out of it. The reliability of that and the affordability of that is an issue, we need to get away from it whether or not you believe in subsidy,” he said.
On the refineries gradually coming back on stream, the Minister noted that a lot of energy is deployed into ensuring that are working because according to him, the more they work, the higher the chances that government will fix a “comfortable price” for Nigerians.
He assured Nigerians that by the end of January when all the refineries are fully back on stream, the 10 million type capacity out of about 40 million projected national consumption will be realized.
