Dr Ibe Kachikwu: oil minister

Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources has predicted that prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) will crash in the next four to six months as a result of the competition inherent in the price modulation.

While presenting his scorecard on his two years in office in a podcast released to reporters in Abuja, the Minister said that with the crash in price of diesel by 40 percent, it is evident that the petrol prices will also crash

He said: “once Nigerians throw their trading skill in, once competition thrives, the prices will continue to tumble.

“My guess is that you will see the prices tumble in the next four, five to six months. The market will be more stable and definitely the prices will be lower than what we see today.”

Dr. Kachikwu also noted that for the first time in the last 10 years, the three refineries are working simultaneously, although at 50  percent of their capacity under his leadership of the sector.

“We expect to put in investment to put them to 90% capacity,” he said, adding that this is the first that the NNPC groups of companies are recording savings which could be used to address the issue of the refineries alongside the Joint Venture Partners.

He also added that government is upgrading the depots to extent that of the 19 only three are not functioning at the moment while replacement of the 35 year old pipelines is also being considered.

The Minister noted that it has been one massive problem after the other in order for the sector to stabilize in term of product supply in the country, but that “the time has come to take on the problem bullishly and that is what we are trying to do. So, we believe the ire will be money for infrastructural development in the downstream sector.

“We believe that a lot of the companies will jump up now and be able to sell at the right prices and not the pump down by the problem of price control and will be able to grow their businesses. We believe that most of them efficient ones will drive prices southward rather than northward.

“And we believe that almost 200,000 jobs will be created in this sector and over 400,000 jobs will be saved which would have been lost if we had continued on the path we were in.”

The Minister further revealed that on assumption of office two years ago, he inherited a debt of N600billion owed to marketers of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) which the federal government settled.