The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, says while the subsidy regime is not sustainable, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed NNPC to do everything legally possible not to make petrol price out of reach of Nigerians, “especially at this moment”.
Speaking during a television interview in Abuja on Wednesday, Kyari said the cost of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol should be more than N280 per litre, a price diesel is currently being sold.
“Today, from what I can remember, I checked the number two days ago; what would we sell if we are at the filling station today and recover our cost fully is around N256/litre,” he said.
“Today we are paying N162/litre (for petrol). I am sure many people buy AGO (diesel) in the market and it is selling at N280/litre in the market today.
“So (there is) nowhere in the world diesel sells more expensive than PMS. That means that the price of petrol anywhere in the world, assuming you are going to sell it at the market, you are going to sell it above that price you have seen.
“What this means however is that we are taking out cash that could have been used for other things to pay under-recovery.
Kyari said although petrol evacuation by NNPC in Nigeria was currently about 60 million litres daily, the corporation was sure that consumption was not up to that volume. He added that smuggling was the reason for the huge consumption volume, stressing that the low petrol price of N162/litre was also an incentive for this.
