According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, there are 1.8 billion liters of gasoline available in total, and the nationwide fuel lines would not last through Saturday, June 3.
Mele Kyari, the group chief executive officer of the NNPCL, said this in an interview that aired on Channels Television on Thursday (June 1, 2023) in Abuja.
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 acknowledged that the PMS pricing document for different states that went viral online on Wednesday was actually from the NNPCL.
The head of NNPCL, however, asserted that the local production of Premium Motor Spirit, often known as gasoline, by the Dangote Refinery, Port Harcourt Refining Company, and others in Nigeria will not affect the product’s retail pricing.
The Dangote Refinery, which former President Muhammadu Buhari officially opened on May 22, 2023, would begin producing goods by the end of July or the beginning of August, according to Kyari.
The Port Harcourt Refinery, he added, will be delivered by the end of the year and was anticipated to increase local gasoline production even more.
He emphasized that it was erroneous to think that once domestic production began, gas prices would drop.
But Kyari asserted that even if these facilities were projected to produce a large amount of gasoline, the price of the good would not go down simply because it was made 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.
