Tuesday, September 3, 2024 - The President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gilly-Harry has urged Nigerians to prepare for a higher price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in days to come, saying that prices would henceforth be sold at the current market prices.
Gilly-Harry disclosed this while
speaking as a guest on Channels Television on Tuesday, September 3. According
to him, current prices of petrol at around N600 per litre may no longer be
possible, as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited battles to keep
the country wet with products.
His stance comes as the NNPCL
recently agreed to be in debt of over $60bn to PMS suppliers.
“We have been shouting that they
(NNPC) have been selling products at N590 per litre. Who is bleeding? Somebody
is bleeding and we need to tell what exactly is going on, we cannot play
politics with everything.''
When asked whether Nigerians should
prepare for a price hike, he said;
“For me, what I will say is to encourage
Nigerians to buy petroleum products at the price that the market forces will
determine. However, we are fully aware that fuel subsidies for different kinds
of products across the world, and oil and gas are a natural blessing for
Nigerians. And naturally, we are expecting a subsidy to be paid for that. And I
will have to look at the advantages of subsidising just PMS when we have health
challenges and other challenges.''
He also spoke on the NNPCL debt to oil
suppliers.
“It is a great effort by the NNPC to
come out to say it is in debt. And this is what we have advised a very long
time ago, that anything that needs to be done in this sector should be done
transparently so that people don’t guess and get into panic. For us as retail
outlet owners, it is a situation that has given us a concern to also look
inward and see what dialogues can bring. Three days ago now, there is
information that we should look for other solutions out of the box.
So it is going to be a tough one. NNPCL is
the only one that has access to expendable amounts of dollars to import PMS or
any other product at this time, because they have a ready market, and they also
earn in dollars, given that our refineries are yet to come on stream. It
definitely means that we have to think out of the box and become creative in
certain ways that will help us to be able to serve Nigerians.
For my members, we have suffered a great deal. You see our filling stations
across the country, but there is no business. So it is a concern for all of us
but we all can think out of the box and come out with a solution to the crisis.
Recall that
when the deregulation regime started in 2023, some members who had access to
forex were also importing. And of course, the reason they stopped was because
you cannot land products within the rate of $1 per litre, and try to sell it
for 30/40n cents. So there could be business arrangements with refineries and
owners of trading companies that could also come to the rescue.
Nigerians
are creative and I know a lot of Nigerians are already working. PETROAN is also
putting together a couple of ideas that will aggregate funds, and see how that
in itself can become a solution. So yes, NNPC has the capacity, and
incidentally, we are here and we hope that we can hurriedly walk this road and
get out of it. Yes, I agree that when information is given, it should be
brutally honest so that we know exactly where we stand. PETROAN and other
sister organisations with bigger capacities are also doing the same thing.
There are so many things that Nigerians can do exactly to get tradable dollars
which we have left.”
He attributed the current high prices of
petrol to the distance NNPC has to cover to bring the products into the
country.
On why the prices of petrol are
currently high, he said “You are trying to buy water, and you ask the water
merchant to supply you. But the supplier has to walk miles to get the water to
you. The price of water you get nearby will be different from the one you get
far away. The answer is no. That is what is happening. The cost of bringing in
products today is much because of the distance.
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