Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited, has emphatically refuted reports that the petrol subsidy has been restored. He stated that there is no subsidy on fuel in Nigeria.
Kyari disclosed this to State House correspondents on Monday after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, according to LEADERSHIP.
Earlier, while speaking on the theme, “Petroleum Downstream Deregulation and Utilisation for a Sustainable Energy Future in Nigeria”, at the 2nd edition of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Energy and Labour Summit (PEALS), Kyari projected that Nigeria will start exporting refined petroleum products by 2024.
He also justified the federal government’s decision for fuel subsidy removal, adding that without the move the NNPCL would have gone bankrupt.
He said that Nigeria needs to have sustainable energy that is anchored on the resources that are available and a replacement for biomass.
Unconfirmed reports suggested that the subsidy was partially restored by the federal government to mitigate the impact of the hike in the dollar against the Nigerian Naira and the increase in the price of crude oil in the world market.
However, Kyari explained that the occasional queues and lower fuel prices observed in some states were not indicative of a return to fuel subsidy.
He said the government was recovering its full costs from the imported products.
He said “No subsidy whatsoever. We are recovering our full cost from the products that we import. We sell to the market and we understand why the marketers are unable to import.
“We hope that they do it very quickly and these are some of the interventions the government is doing where there is no subsidy.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu removed the subsidy on May 29, 2023, shortly after taking an oath of office, leading to an increase in the price of the product from below N200 to the current N617.
