Petrol price in Nigeria will go up in the new year
going by official disclosure that over N1 trillion
had already been spent on it in 2015.
A cash strapped Nigeria government appears not
willing to continue the Santa Claus policy
anymore and will peg the price at N97 per litre.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources,
Ibe Kachikwu dropped this hint when he
appeared before the Senate/House of
Representatives joint committees on the Medium
Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
He said subsidy expenditure was on the high
side.
''The total subsidy figure for 2015 when taking
along with the NNPC will be in excess of
N1trillion. We can get this specifics but the point
is largely that it does not involve NNPC because
the agency takes its, off-cuff.
''We will work towards taking those figures off
our budget in 2016. They are critical issues. The
current pricing work we are doing had shown
that there shouldn't really be subsidy. The
government doesn't need to subsidy.
''There is energy around the removal of
subsidy. Most Nigerians we talk to today, would
say, that's where to go. I have since left the
dictionary of subsidy by going to price
modulation which is a bit more technical. Price
of refined products today is N87.
It was N97 before it was removed and we really
have to go back to that because we don't really
have the finance to remove it.
''There are lots of safety barometer between
the N87 and N97per litre regime between which
government does not have to fund subsidy. Yet
the prices would be fairly close to what it used
to be today. That is the first mechanism we are
going to work.'' He said.
On the daily oil production target, he said, ''from
August this year we have been exceeding two
million daily productions through stringent
monitoring of our production by getting quick
fixes to instances of pipelines breaking. The
internal projection for our system next year is in
excess of 2.4m which is coming from enhanced
and increased production from NPDC field.''
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