The Federal Government has announced the scrapping of oil subsidy and a reduction of the pump price of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to N85 per litre from January 1, 2016.

Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, broke the news to journalists in the Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC), where he spent Christmas inspecting the plant.

Asked when would the Federal Government release the new price temperate of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulation Agency (PPPRA), he said that he approved the new price for the agency on Thursday.

Pressed to reveal when the new price will become effective, Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said: “Like I said, we have done a modulation calculation and it is showing us below N87. I imagine that if PPPRA publishes it today, it will become effective immediately. But the 1st of January that is when we are looking at.”

He noted trhat the new price is below the current N87 per litre, saying that it would now convince Nigerians that the pricing modulation that the Federal Government promised to embark on a few days ago was not a trick.

He further noted that following government’s analysis and research, it has been realised that the country can fluctuate the fuel market in accordance with the crude oil market fundamentals.

Justifying government’s reasons for scrapping the Petroleum Support Fund otherwise known as oil subsidy, Kachikwu explained that government can no longer afford to subsidise the product following the fraud that has attended its operation.

He added that it has become clear that government earnings are dipping on daily basis.

His words: “It is out I signed off on it yesterday (Thursday). I imagined that in the next couple of days the marketers would get advice on that. The nice thing about the PPPRA, where I signed up on it yesterday is that the price will be far below N87.

“So for the first time people will understand that the pricing modulation I was talking about is not a gimmick. It is for real. We have gone to find out how we will be able fluctuate this market to reflect what the reality of crude market is. The objective is that one, we cannot afford to continue to subsidise.

“We can’t even understand where those subsidies were going to. There is a lot of fraud elements in it so we need to cut that of.

“The second is the earning capacity of the Federal Government is deteriorating by the day with lower prices of crude and come out more.”

The minister submitted that from the application market realities for the pricing modulation, government has discoverd that petrol would sell for either N85 or N86 per litre.

The minister recalled that it was from this axiom that President Muhammadu Buhari announced that the price of petrol remains N87 at the moment.

Kachikwu said: “But in applying that where we landed when we did the analysis for the very first time was about N85 or N86 so it is below N87.

“And maybe the first price that will come will reflect it. That was why Mr. President said that prices will be N87 for now. And that is what we have in mind.”

On the security of the pipelines, he said that government had tried stopping the menace with military intervention to no avail before it engaged some private contractors who had worked with the majors for the crude pipeline management.

According to him, the private contractors have taken over Atlas Cove, Mosimi and they would be extending the surveillance to Ilorin between yesterday and today.

They will also look at the Port Harcourt and Aba axis, he stressed.

The minister said that government is now beginning to have a clue of how to tackle pipeline insecurity, adding that it is far more expensive to convey petroleum and products through pipelines than trucking them by road.

He said from the briefing he got from the inspection of the refineries, they are close to re-opening.

“In the next one week, we are ready to see products out of here,” he disclosed.

Kachikwu said that a lot of the rehabilitation of the refinery was being done with intensive manual labour of the staff since paucity of fund affected the holistic change that is required in the factory.

He said that the refinery is now aging so one fault comes up after the other even after repair but that would stop when government repairs the plant holistically early next year.

According to him, about 5.5 million litres daily of PMS is expected from the refinery in the next few days. Other products to come from the plants, said Kachikwu “are AGO, Kero and others. Where we love to be is to have half of the consumption of this country at the refineries at the minimum, which is about 20 million litres. But where we are with the sleepless night I have had in the last few weeks any molecule is significant.

“Kaduna will still be doing 2.3 million. Let’s start from there. And that is doing 60 per cent performance. This is still an assumption. I will like to see them getting closer to 80 or 90. By the time they time they do that we will be getting 11 to 12 million litres out of this place.” (PR Nigeria)

•Photo shows Kachikwu.

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