The Chairman, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mosimi, Ogun State, Mr. Adeleke Bada, has agreed with the former Minister of Petroleum, Prof. Tam David-West, that petroleum pump price can sell for N40 per litre. He added that this could only be possible, if the country refined all crude oil in the nation’s refineries. Bada said this in an interview with journalists shortly after the association’s Annual General Meeting in Abeokuta, the state capital. Reacting to the advice given by former Minister of Petroleum Resources, David-West, to the President-elect to reduce the pump price to N40, Bada said:
“Reducing the pump price of a litre of fuel to N40 is possible only if the refineries are working. If you look at the nature of the market presently, that isn’t realistic. Do we have the refineries? The only reason that it can be possible is when we have our own refineries and we do not export our crude oil for processing. If the processing is done in Nigeria, then it can be sold at the rate of N40, but not until all the refineries are fixed.”
He, however, blamed the non-compliance of sale of petrol at the N87 per litre by some petroleum marketers on the expenses incurred by the marketers while trying to get the fuel available for the use of the masses. He said the levies being paid by the marketers to various regulatory associations and unions had made the marketers to increase the prices of fuel to their desired amount. He said:
“The government has not increased the price of fuel; it is still N87 per litre. But by the time you get to the depot, after paying around N2.6m for your ticket, a lot of levies are still to be paid. Levies from PTD, IPMAN and all others, adding them all together with the cost of transporting your trucks to the station, no one is ready to run at a loss.”
Is this really feasible?