By Miracle Ogunde
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri has said that the downstream sector is now fully deregulated with the government no longer involved in setting prices.
Lokpobiri who spoke in Abuja at the inaugural meeting of the Petroleum Industry Stakeholders Forum, PISF, in Abuja, Vanguard reports.
The minister insisted that fluctuations in the pump price of petrol would be determined by the price of crude oil in the international market.
Lokpobiri pointed out that deregulation ended all malfeasance associated with the petrol subsidy policy.
The government’s position followed the recent hike in the price of petrol from N909 per litre to N970 per litre by depot owners, fueling fears of a possible rise in pump price at filling stations to over N1,000 per litre.
“The whole essence of deregulation is for price to find its level. Before now you will agree with me that every day you are hearing negative news about petrol subsidies. Today, you journalists have no negative news about petrol subsidies because it is completely regulated, and the price will find its level,” he said.
“As oil price goes up, petrol price will go up and as oil price comes down, price will come up. During the Christmas season, I was in Bayelsa, and I tried to go around different filling stations. Some filling stations were selling N1,020, others were selling N999, while others were selling N1,015.
“What we are concerned about, and I’ve always had that discussion with you, with the Authority Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, is that the government is more interested in quality control. Government is more interested in availability and what the government is particularly interested in is dispensation of the right quantity.
“If you are buying 10 litres of PMS, let it be that you are not short changed by the retail filling station. That is where we have issues. And once there is competition, people have a choice, and that’s why you don’t see any queues”.
Leave a Reply