|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Emmanuel Ibeh Kachikwu,the 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 petroleum sector,Kachikwu said the under payment is done by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation,NNPC to ensure price stability in the market space,since the corporation is the sole importer of the product currently.
Kachikwu gave the information on Thursday while fielding questions from newsmen on :”Workshop on harmonisation of Liquified Petroleum Gas,(LPG),regulatory requirements”,while stating that federal government is discussing with the organised Private sector in ensuring enough infrastructure to improve gas availability.
Kachikwu said that as a means of addressing infrastructure gap,the government will soon launch an infrastructure rebirth map to attract more investments into both the upstream and down stream sector.
He said,”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 pipe line beyond trucks and making availabilty of gas all over the country”
Kachikwu insists that there are lots of Gas everywhere,and there are lots of petroleum products everywhere,which are trapped because of shortage of infrastructure,as he noted that Nigeria needed the right kind of infrastructure to still oen up the investment space in both the upstream and down stream sector.
In his remarks at the event,Nosa,Ogieva-Okunbor,the President of Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers said the Nigerian currently consumes 700 000 metric tonns of Gas annually,while if the infrastructure is in place,Nigeria could consume 5 million metric tonns of Gas annually.
Nosa said the private sectors are keying in as the Nigerian Gas Policy has also assisted them and has also opened the sector for investments.
He said,”We have more jetty that LPG can come in to discharge contents in strategic areas. Hence,scarcity of commodity is almost a thing of the past,as the government policies have allowed LPG industries to be further deepened to ensure availability of LPG”
HARRISON EDEH, ABUJA
