The Petroleum Product Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) has insisted that the price of petrol will continue to increase except there are functional refineries in the country.
President of PETROAN, Dr. Billis Gillis-Harry, who stated this during a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said the association has the capacity to manage the refineries, giving its vast establishments across the country.
“The cost of fixing the refineries today from what we are told is running into about $1.8 billion or thereabouts. Revamping the four refineries will cost Nigeria too much money.
“PETROAN can come together and partner with the federal government in ensuring that we have established modular refineries that can do at least up to fifteen thousand barrels per day. That should be able to guarantee our domestic consumption per day,” Gillis-Harry stated.
He further said Nigerians will start buying petrol at N200 per litre giving the monthly increase of depot price of the product and called on federal government to be sincere in its deregulation of the petroleum sector.
“As far as pricing of petroleum product is concerned, we know that because of certain exigencies that are happening in the market, prices of petroleum product will continue to increase. There is no doubt about that. Let the government start to work together on how to bring in economic dynamics that should be able to cushion such shock in the system.”
The PETROAN President, however, said the association would support the government to ensure that subsidy was no longer the order of the day.
-REUTERS