Nigeria to rely on 75% importation of petrol in 2016 – NNPC

He said: “The future is that Nigeria is still going to import fuel in 2016 and beyond”.

“In the next few weeks, however, queues will disappear in fuel stations”, he stated.

Speaking on speculations that the federal government intends to sell the refineries, the minister stated that there was no such plan to the best of his knowledge, pointing out that the government was working round the clock to ensure that the refineries operate at optimum capacity to satisfy the needs of Nigerians. On the speculated removal of subsidy, he lamented that the amount spent in the past for “political subsidy’ was huge”.

He said, “To show their level of confusion, two days after the Minister of Information declared that Boko Haram had been defeated, President Buhari said the government would persuade Boko Haram to abandon their fight”.

In this way, he said that the refinery will be able to produce optimally in the years ahead.

The minister affirms that the Kaduna refinery, in no time, will be producing more than two million litres per day capacity as soon as an Fluid Catalytic Cracking, FCC, unit is fully on stream.

The minister assured Nigerians that the current hardship being faced will soon be a thing of the past.

“We have to reflect these prices to reflect realities of crude market”. “What will now happen when they remove subsidy and allow market forces to determine the price?”

“The new N85 price at the pump means the government is determining profit margins along the supply chain, and pegging the wholesale price of petrol from foreign refineries”.

Kachikwu also explained that by the end of January 2016, he expects that Nigeria would be able to source up to 10 million litres of her domestic petrol consumption from its four refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna.

The fuel subsidy regime, which cost the government about N1 trillion ($5 billion) in 2015, will be scrapped, the minister said.

He, however, said that through the price modulation mechanism, the government would continue to monitor price to keep it within a specified band.

His words: “First, let me say that we are expending too much energy on semantics”.

He said: “We need to get it back to re-kit it to work well”.

He said a new pricing template he signed off on Thursday effectively removed the payment of subsidy on petrol and that oil marketers would be informed of the development in the coming days.

“We have done a modulation calculation and it is showing that the price should be below N87”.

As the Nigerian government announced cuts in the price of gasoline, and the removal of fuel subsidies, industry experts wondered if the move would be sustainable. I will like to see them getting closer to 80 or 90.

“The president is very emphatic on this, he says for now, he expects that products should be at N87. But the 1st of January that is when we are looking at”.

So, I don’t want to be involved in this controversy of subsidy or no subsidy and whether it is provided in next year’s budget or not.

The reliability and affordability of that is an issue.