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HARRISON EDEH,ABUJA
Emmanuel Ibeh Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, said on Thursday that the Federal Government’s current annual payment of ‘under recovery’ on Petroleum import stands at N1.3 trillion annually.
Although the National Assembly, has questioned the rationale behind the ‘under recovery’ payment while describing it as subsidy for the petroleum sector, Kachikwu said the under payment is done by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure price stability in the market, since the corporation is the sole importer of the product currently.
Kachikwu gave the information on Thursday, while fielding questions from newsmen in the course of a workshop on “Harmonisation of Liquified Petroleum Gas,(LPG),regulatory requirements”. He added that Federal Government is discussing with the organised private sector to ensure infrastructure upgrades to improve gas availability.
He said as a means of addressing infrastructure gaps, government would soon launch an infrastructure rebirth map to attract more investments into both the upstream and down stream sector.
He further observed that,”Government is hoping to launch an infrastructure rebirth map,which would open up Tarrif in terms of policy that will enable people go into investing into the critical infrastructure that we need to open up the upstream and down stream sector.
“The infrastructure map should be able to open infrastructure in transportation of the petroleum products, whether through pipelines, beyond trucks and ensuring availabilty of gas all over the country.”
In his remarks at the event ,Ogieva-Okunbor, President of the Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers, said Nigeria currently consumes 700,000 metric tonns of gas annually, while if the infrastructure was in place, the country could consume five million metric tonns of gas annually.
Nosa said the private sectors is keying in, as the Nigerian Gas Policy has also assisted them and has also opened the sector to investments.
