As crude oil prices continue to soar above $100 per barrel, the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has declared that there wouldn’t be any excuse for Nigeria not to reap the gains, especially with the current Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Africa Daily News, New York reports that was coming at a time when petrol scarcity has worsened as marketers increase the price above the N165 approved rate.
Buhari made the comments on Monday at the opening ceremony of the 5th edition of the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2022) at the State House Abuja.
He said, ‘Crude oil prices are on the rise again after turning negative in April 2020. It is a great opportunity for us as a country. With the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in place, there should be no excuses. The enabling investment environment, which has been the bane of the industry has been taken care of by provisions in the PIA.’
On harnessing gas resources, the president asserted that; ‘We will ensure further optimal exploitation and utilisation of the country’s vast natural gas resources.’
On his part, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said through the PIA, the government is promoting the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as the domestic fuel of choice.
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He said, ‘With this programme, we have established a 20 million Cylinder Injection Scheme (CIS); 5-10 million of these are to be introduced in pilot states this year.’
The Group Managing Director and CEO of NNPCL, Malam Mele Kyari, said, ‘Transition must have sanity and there must be justice in energy transition, which means help to get us to a point where we are able to transport our ordinary people from their homes to their workplaces and also in the short term assist us in making sure that we have the most-friendly fuel that is put in place in the next five to 10 years as we also build our ability to put the renewable on the table.’
Experts are however of the opinion that Nigeria may be worse off as higher oil prices mean more subsidy payments for the government. Unlike its OPEC peers, Nigeria imports all of its refined petroleum products, mainly through ‘opaque’ transactions coordinated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, which puts the country’s daily consumption of petrol at 93million litres during peak periods.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that Nigeria may be in for a longer stress of the scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol just as some marketers are selling the product already above the approved price band of N165 per litre.
The petrol scarcity has lasted nearly one month since it started over cases of adulterated petrol imported by NNPC Ltd and its partners from Belgium.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
