By Adedapo Adesanya
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has advised the federal government to allow the group alongside other private investors to take over the running of the country’s refineries.
The call was made by Mr Danladi Pasali, the National Secretary of the association while reacting to the current realities surrounding the pump price of petrol.
There have been widespread reports that petrol prices might increase considering the recent rally in global crude oil prices which returned to pre-pandemic levels.
But with pump price currently at the N165 price mark, projections show that it may rise again especially with oil prices trading currently at $61 per barrel.
Speaking further, Mr Pasali commended government’s efforts, saying that IPMAN controlled 80 per cent of the downstream sectors and this would be a good avenue for the country to work on collaborating to revamp its refining capacities.
“IPMAN controls 80 per cent of the downstream sectors of the industry and with our investments running into trillion, the government should give us the three refineries.
“We can run it successfully in collaboration with our foreign investors,” he said.
Mr Pasali said that allowing investors to take over would help in making the government’s job easy and improve economic development.
He said increasing petrol price, for now, was not a good thing, as the economic index shows that the county was in economic hardship.
“The capacity of people buying the products is low now compared to before, for example, some people buy petrol of N1,500 for their cars but it was not like that in the past.”
Mr Pasali also advised the government to call for stakeholders’ meeting to help solve the problem.
“We can look at other means because there are so many things in the oil template, for example, to see how we can reduce the tension.
“There are so many charges in the template like the unnecessary marine charges that can be reduced and it can help reduce the tension, among other suggestions.”
