IPMAN to FG: It’s not a good time to increase petrol price

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has advised the federal government to suspend any intended upward review in the price of petrol.

Danladi Pasali, IPMAN national secretary, was reacting to a report that the pump price of petrol might likely get to N190 per litre after the price of crude oil hit $60 per barrel in the international market.

Speaking at the official launch of Nigerian upstream cost optimisation programme in Abuja, Timipre Sylva, the minister of state for petroleum resources, said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) cannot continue to bear the cost of under-recovery given that there is no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget.

The minister also advised Nigerians to be ready to bear the pain of higher petrol prices.

At present, the pump price of petrol ranges from N160 –N165, the price band set when crude traded just above $43 per barrel four months ago.

Pasali said increasing petrol price, for now, is not a good thing, as the economic index shows that the county was in economic hardship.

“The capacity of people buying the products is low now compared to before, for example, some people buy petrol of N1,500 for their cars but it was not like that in the past,” he told NAN in an interview on Wednesday.

“We can look at other means because there are so many things in the oil template.

“There are so many charges in the template like the unnecessary marine charges that can be reduced and it can help reduce the tension, among other suggestions.”

Pasali also recommended that investors be allowed to take over the country’s three refineries to make the government’s job easy and improve economic development.

“IPMAN controls 80 percent of the downstream sectors of the industry and with our investments running into trillions, the government should give us the three refineries,” he said.

“We can run it successfully in collaboration with our foreign investors.”

The NNPC has shut down the refineries on grounds that the operations are no longer sustainable.