- Ministerial nominee and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ibe Kachikwu revealed that Nigeria is losing in excess of N3trillion annually to lack of Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
“The investment that we are losing on an annual basis because of the lack of PIB, is in excess of $15b (N3tr) a year, and the reason is simple,” he said while addressing the senate on Wednesday. “It would have been better that you didn’t start at all, then announce very flamboyantly that you were going to do PIB then step back from it, because it increases the level of uncertainty that no international investor wants to grapple with. “So I would urge this very revered senate to very quickly come to terms and find a way of working with us, to go ahead and pass those elements of PIB where there is no much contention.”
He allayed fears of scarcity, reiterating that Nigeria has refined fuel to last the country for 40 to 50 days to say the least, with no plans to reduce PMS pump price. “Refineries today are operating at about 25, 27 percent capacity. I know there have been numbers bandied about with performance level of 65 percent. That’s not true and I have advised His Excellency as such. “When I joined, the first thing I did was to put a clarion call to all the managers of the refineries, and I said the success of your job depends on these refineries and how you work. “If we can’t run them, then we need to get out, make adequate arrangement, privatise them and take them out.
- He urged the country to let go of disgraceful importation of crude, which it has in excess, adding that the price of importation is exorbitant.
