The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL said a total of 1.8 billion litres petrol are available, adding that the fuel queues being witnessed across the country will not exceed Saturday (3rd June).
The NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television in Abuja on Thursday.
Kyari said, “I don’t see it staying beyond another day or two, maximum. It can actually be on Saturday. We have supplies. The key trouble with the PMS system is supply, but I have supplies.
“There are over 810 million litres of PMS in depots, tanks and fuel stations across the country, so you don’t have the problem of transferring those from marine to land, you already have them on the ground,” he added.
He confirmed that the PMS pricing document for various states that trended on Wednesday on the internet was from the NNPCL.
The NNPCL boss, however said, the local production of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol, by Dangote Refinery, Port Harcourt Refining Company and others in Nigeria is not going to change the pump price of the commodity.
Kyari confirmed that the Dangote Refinery, which was inaugurated on May 22, 2023, by former President Muhammadu Buhari, would start pushing out products by the end of July and early August.
He also stated that the Port Harcourt Refinery would be delivered by the end of the year, adding that the facility was expected to further boost local production of petrol.
He stressed that the notion that petrol prices would reduce once the country starts domestic production was false.
But Kyari declared that despite the volume of petrol being expected from these facilities, the cost of the commodity would not reduce, regardless of the fact that the product was produced locally.
He said, “There is a notion that if the product is processed locally, prices will reduce. Let me make it clear that it is not going to change anything. If you produce locally, the refineries will also input the cost of production and other things and it will be sold at the current price.
“There will also be no subsidy when local production starts because there is no cash-to-back subsidy, this country no longer has the resources to continue with subsidy,” Kyari added.
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