The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Minister of State for Petroleum

  • ‘Ban on sale of petrol in jerry cans unlawful’

    ‘Ban on sale of petrol in jerry cans unlawful’

    A lawyer and rights activist, Chief Malcom Omirhobo, on Thursday asked the Federal High Court, Lagos to declare as unlawful the Federal Government’s ban on the sale of petrol in jerry cans.

    The applicant is suing for himself and on behalf of the people of Nigeria.

    Joined as respondents in the suit are the Attorney-General (AG) of the Federation, Minister of State for Petroleum, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

    In suit number FHC/L/CS/1024/2016 Omirhobo is seeking a declaration that the directive of the second and third respondents to filling station owners, not to sell petroleum products to Nigerians in jerry cans is discriminatory.

    In an affidavit deposed to by the applicant, he averred that in January, he approached several filling stations with a jerry can to purchase fuel for his generator set, but was denied sale.

    Omirhobo said upon enquiry, he was informed by all the filling station operators that there was a directive from the respondents not to sell fuel to Nigerians in jerry cans, gallons or keg.

    He claimed that this refusal led him as well as many Nigerians, to resort to buying fuel from the black market at exorbitant prices.

    Omirhobo averred that as long as power supply had yet to improve in the country, Nigerians will continue to rely on generator sets, and also, purchase fuel in kegs to power them.

    He is seeking a declaration that the government’s directive to filing station operators nationwide not to sell petrol to Nigerians in gallons, except those with vehicles, was inhumane and unlawful.

    Furthermore he wants an order directing the respondents to order the sale of petrol to every Nigerian in jerry cans for personal consumption and to facilitate their source of livelihood.

  • Buhari faults blackmail of senior government officials

    Buhari faults blackmail of senior government officials

    President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to discerning Nigerians to ignore orchestrated attempts to sully the integrity of ministers and other senior government officials, who are being tarred with the brush of corruption without any concrete evidence.

    He was reacting to reports, particularly by online media, claiming that the immediate past Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and a Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, is being investigated over crude oil swap deals and gas liftings during his tenure as GMD of NNPC.

    Buhari, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, appealed for decent and civilized comments, particularly when it has to do with the integrity of those who are serving the country.

    “Terrible and unfounded comments about other people’s integrity are not good. We are not going to spare anybody who soils his hands, but people should please wait till such individuals are indicted,” the President said.

    He reiterated the administration’s commitment to probity, accountability and integrity, promising that transparency remained a watchword, which would never be trifled with.

  • FG assigns NSA to lead dialogue on Niger Delta crisis

    FG assigns NSA to lead dialogue on Niger Delta crisis

    President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed his National Security Adviser, Retired Gen. Babagana Mongunu to head the team that will dialogue with the warring Niger Delta militants.

    The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu broke the news to journalists in Abuja Monday.

    According to him, he is a member of the team which also includes the nation security and service chiefs and other stakeholders to distill military intervention in the area so that dialogue can take place.

    “We are making contacts with those involved that we can identify and through them to the ones we cannot identify so that there will be inclusiveness for dialogue. Our prayer is that this works so that we resort to dialogue instead of use of force to solve problems. ….it is always difficult when arms are used against fellow citizens whether by the militants or by the government, “he said.

    He however noted that the crisis in the region has culminated in a loss of 600,000 barrel per day.

    Kachikwu said that for the government to recover the lost barrel it has to first win back the hearts of the aggressive militants.

    He added that that he has always been of the disposition that government has to engage the unhappy citizens.

    Assuring the country that government is opened to dialogue, the minister said that “unless that the government is pushed to take extreme measures, the desire of his excellency, Mr. President is to try engage and dialogue with issues.

    “The President has appointed a team led by the National Security Adviser to head the process of a very intensive dialogue…and I am sure in the ensuing one week the intensity of that dialogue will ramp up.”

    Kachikwu said that intensity of the attacks was causing a lot of problems such as pollution and affects on consistent production.

    His words: “Coming to what is happening in Nigeria in terms of security challenges in the oil industry, over the last two months we have lost about 600,000 barrel from various attacks of militants in the area.

    “We are making efforts to see how we can get those back obviously and getting the barrels back is also getting the hearts of people back. My attitude has always been that when citizens are unhappy about something we try to engage.

    “And I know given the intensity of the attacks which is causing a lot of problems, both in terms of pollution and in term of continuity  of production and sanctity of career paths of the oil industry to what has been happening, the response has been to ensure adequate security coverage in those areas and for the safety of lives and property and equality to bring tranquility back to what is ordinarily a very serene and wonderful geographical space to be in.

    “I am from the Niger Delta and my first appeal is to my brothers who engage in those protests to sheath the sword and the dagger and then get back to the table so that we can have conversation as Nigerians. …the answer to the issues is not taking up of arms. The Federal Government is committed to continue this dialogue.”

    He stressed the fact that the President was interested in restoring peace to the Niger Delta, adding that Buhari has urged the use of every available opportunity to dialogue with the militants to end the matter.

    In terms of effects of the crisis on oil production, the minister said that “in terms of production, I think we are producing 1.5 and 1.6million barrel per day down from 2.2million of this year’s the basis of this year’s budget.”

    According to him, between now and August, if peace reigns, the sector would be able to raise the volume of production substantially.

    Kachikwu promised that the ministry and its related agencies would work hard to cover the gaps in a manner that the losses would not affect this year’s budget significantly.

  • Nigerians in Diaspora lauds Buhari, Kachikwu on Petrol Pricing

    Nigerians in Diaspora lauds Buhari, Kachikwu on Petrol Pricing

    The Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group, has lauded President Muhammadu Buhari, for liberalizing petrol sales.

    The group described the action as the beginning of economic rebirth for the country.

    The group also said President Buhari and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, have carved niches for themselves in Nigeria’s history and deserving laurels for daring to do the right thing.

    A statement by the United Kingdom Coordinator of the group in Abuja, Adeka Onyilo, said: “The inherited rot that left Nigerians suffering on fuel queues was becoming an international embarrassment until President Buhari took the bull by the horn.

    “The cartel that acquire FOREX from government under the guise of importing petrol only embark on round tripping has been severed from the supply chain and should leave the government with some money to invest in other sectors that will touch the lives of citizens across board.

    “We however urged that the judicious and prudent management of the resources of Nigeria vested in the custody of the present government because this is important to the nation’s prosperity.”

    It further urged President Buhari and Kachikwu, to ensure that Nigerians who now have to pay realistic prices for petrol are not short-changed by fraudulent marketers who tamper with their meter to under dispense the product.

    “We further urge the Minister to enforce the price cap as reports indicate that some outlets still sell above the computed N145 per litre. Such development can only create the cover for those opposed to change to creep on the government and populace with another price hike or petrol scarcity citing the willingness of the people to pay more as excuse,” the group said in the statement.
     

  • Nigeria to begin exportation of fuel by 2019 – Kachikwu 

    Nigeria to begin exportation of fuel by 2019 – Kachikwu 

    Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu has said that, the federal government in its efforts to permanently end fuel crisis in the country is to build three more refineries in Kaduna, Port-harcout and Warri.

    He said when that is completed as planned by 2018, Nigeria will start exporting refined petroleum products for the first time since inception by 2019.

    This was also as he promised that, every household in the country will get free gas cylinder before the end of next year, to stop over dependence on kerosene.

    The Minister who doubles as the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) stated these while addressing Nigerians at the Town Hall Meeting organised by the Federal Ministry of Information in Kaduna on Tuesday.

    According to Kachikwu, “More refineries have to be built, and the target is to build three more refineries to be located in Kaduna, Potharcout and Warri taking advantage on the share facilities.

    “And if we do this, by 2018 if all our refineries are working we will drop importation by 60 percent. And by 2019 if the four located refineries begin to work and am sure they will, we will actually begin to export petroleum product for the first time in this country.

    “Let me start by apologising for the difficulties you been experiencing in terms of getting fuel.

    “Having arrived Kaduna this morning from Lagos, I did a quick tour of Kaduna metropolis. Although the situation is improving but I felt sad still that some areas around the metropolis are not getting the product especially that you have a refinery.

    “But the realities about the situation is that wherever I turn when I was appointed I found problems when.

    “The refineries were not working when I was appointed in October. If I turn to the pipelines, they were not in existence. If I turn to the upstream, there no funding. So production was sliding.

    “If I turn to the NNPC structure, there was massive issue of transparency that everybody talked about. And if I turn to what the future was to Nigeria, I saw the solution rather than hope.

    “So, I took over the mantle under these circumstances. But I was not discouraged because the President is committed to surmounting the problems.

    “This is the first time we have two refineries working simultaneously in the last Eight years. For the first time in 20 years we are working to restructure the NNPC.

    “On the fuel issue, the reality is that as long as these refineries don’t work in absolutely top capacity, as long as we don’t have the foreign exchange to bring in the products, as long as the price of crude continues to slide, and part of my responsibility is getting it up.

    “As long as such conditions continue, we will have problems with fuel. So we have to apply brain work to it.

    “Do, I want to see the problems continue? No. There is a lot of improvement but there is a lot of work require. And in the next three months I assure you will see great improvement in terms of fuel supply.

    “Most importantly, we need to begin to developed massive infrastructural support in this country. The pipelines must get to work, got to get investors to invest in them because we do not have the money to build them up.

    “For the upstream sector where production has been climbing down, our target is to move production up to 2.3 Million barrel, but I am personally committed to 2.5 million barrel.

    “The blowing of pipelines cannot drive us back, we are committed. The days of hopelessness have passed, the days of careless expenditure are passed, the days of corruption are going, and we are heading to the future were we can deliver a country we can all be proud of,” he explained.

    He however promised that, “to improve our marketing outlets, we are building about 700 marketing outlets all over the country, one per local government. And we are asking the state governments to give us land to do this.  We are building multi big stations with shopping malls, which will beef up activities in the local government areas.

    “We have the concept of providing free gas cylinders to every Nigerian household, which will be roll out next year so that we can pull Nigerians away from the use of Kerosene to cleaner fuel,” he promised.

    However, before rounding off his address,  Kachikwu asked everybody in the hall to stand up, holding hands together and recite the following: “we are Nigerians, we are made by our common destiny, our purpose, our country is bless in ways unimaginable, we as Nigerians are not limited by hope, not limited by resources, not limited by talent, not limited by aspirations. Our nation has had its challenges but we remain abundantly bless, so today, this moment, now going forward, we join hands across our land, hands across our tribes, hands across our religion, hands to our leaders and our followers. And as Nigerians unite in struggle, we have decided to build  the Nigeria of our dreams, a Nigeria of less criticism but creativity, a Nigeria of abundant not scarcity, a Nigeria unify not fraction, a Nigeria transparent not fraudulent, a Nigeria with abundant dreams, aspirations and delivery. Today, this moment, we stand on treasure of history to built the new Nigeria of our dreams.”

     

  • Fuel scarcity: Mega Marketers threaten to expose saboteurs

    Fuel scarcity: Mega Marketers threaten to expose saboteurs

    Association of Mega Filling Station Owners of Nigeria, AMFSON, has told the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu that if they are pushed to the wall they will mention the names of his subordinates sabotaging his efforts to end fuel crisis.
    This was as it said that heads will roll in the oil industry if they go ahead to mention names.
    Addressing a press conference yesterday over plight of members of the Association to access fuel after several months of depositing millions of Naira for supply, National Secretary of AMFSON, Kenneth Nwachukwu said his members had in recent past resisted the urge to mention the saboteurs even when the Minister insisted they mention names.
    Nwachukwu alleged that several trucks of fuel had been diverted into black markets by these perceived saboteurs at the detriment of mega stations owners and Nigerians in general.
    He pointed out that it was for incident of fuel scarcity that the immediate past government established mega affiliate stations in order to cushion its negative effect on Nigerians, and urged the Minister who is also the Group Managing Director to address plight of AMFSON members to help in ending the fuel crisis.
    He said, “The minister said we should mention names, but you know Nigerians, when you come out in public to mention names of the saboteurs, they can go after you, so it is something that if it is possible to do one on one with the Minister, we can tell him, there is nothing to be feared because we have evidence of how fuel is being diverted into the black markets, we have evidence of everything we are saying about this fuel crisis.
    “The Minister said we should mention names that if we mention names the persons will not last 24 hours. But it is not proper to mention names in public, we are giving information, it is left for the Minister to go underground and work on the information and get to the root of what we are saying. We cannot come out to the market place and say this person is a thief. We don’t do things like that, but if we are pushed to the wall and mention names, heads will roll at NNPC Retail.
    “One of the ways to end this fuel crisis is for the Minister to come down to our own level and discuss with us, get the whole truth of the people that are sabotaging his efforts. If they supply fuel to our affiliate stations, there will be no scarcity again. This is what the immediate past government was doing with us in time like this.
    “The NNPC Retail will take this fuel meant for us to the black market, and still end up spoiling our names as if we are the one diverting the fuel, the fuel that was not delivered to us, but distributed somewhere else in our names. This is corruption in the highest order.
    “We are now crying out, we met twice with the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, and we told him that NNPC Retail staffs have refused to bring us into the mainstream of fuel distribution. But they can’t be the accused and the Judges, and everything at the same time.
    “The petroleum product belongs to the government, it belongs to the people, so these staffs should not keep it to themselves, we should know how it is being distributed. We should know the quantity that is available, and we should know that this is the quantity you are giving to us being the marketers, you cannot wake up one morning and say you gave us five million trucks. Who did you give them to?. Nobody knows.
    “Sometimes it is our names they used in bringing out that product, but it never got to us.
    “When we met the Minister for the first time, around October last year, we discovered that the NNPC Retail staffs deceived him to embark on building new 800 filling stations, but it does not make sense to build 800 stations when the old ones on the ground have not been serviced.
    “So when we met him, we told him about our own plight, that these staffs believe that NNPC Retail belong to them, and not to Nigerian people, they believe that it is their birthright, staffs that are earning salaries.
    “We told the Minister of our problem that these staffs refused to work with us as an Association, they prefer to work with us on individual basis, so that if you are dying as an individual, you can’t talk, and if you talk, they drive you out of the business. Since there is strength in unity, they don’t want to deal with us as an association.
    “So the Minister told them in our presence he saw nothing wrong for them to work with us as an association than as an individual. He said that they should go and work with us. So we left.
    “May be they went back to poison the Minister’s mind because since that time our problem became worst, they just abandoned us completely. For more than six weeks now, some us deposited N10 million, we cannot access fuel. So how can we keep quite over these issues.
    “Again, we wrote to the Minister, and we met, and he was seriously disturbed by what is happening.  We reported back to him that NNPC Retail staffs have refused to with our association. And he was furious and asked them what is wrong with working with our association.
    “The Minister therefore told them to go and set up a committee that will comprise our own members so that we should be able to monitor the product, even if it means offloading the product at a particular depot from where we can load our own supply.
    “The minister handed our issue to a new Chief Operating Officer (COO) who now told us that he will call for dealers meeting and not association meeting. But we were surprised at this because we are registered association, so nobody can stop us from being an association. This matter had dragged us and the NNPC Retail to the National Assembly, where the Senators settled the matter that we have 600 mega stations and the Corporation has only 37 Mega Stations, and that we should be given a supply too even if it is 50 to us and 50 to them.
    “Sometimes you see 10 trucks of fuel packed at Mega 1, while none of our members has fuel. And by night the Mega 1 will sell off these 10 trucks to the black market.
    “You cannot solve fuel scarcity in this way unless you allow the supply to go round. But you pack 10 trucks in one place, whom are you deceiving, and by night you send the trucks to the black markets,” Nwanchukwu explained.

  • Normalcy will soon return to filling stations – NUPENG

    The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Wednesday assured that normalcy would soon return to filling states nationwide if the current tempo of loading at the depots continued till the weekend.

    Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, the South-West Chairman of the union, gave the assurance in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

    Korodo said that the NNPC commenced massive pumping of petrol to its depot at Mosinmi early this week and loading of petroleum trucks had started.

    “Going round some depots in Lagos, I observed that loading was going on and more filling stations are selling the product at the control price.

    “Some filling stations that are selling between N130 and N150 will be forced to sell at control price when the market is flooded with petrol.

    “If NNPC can keep the tempo of the loading till weekend, more filling stations will have petrol and the queue of motorists at filling stations will reduce.

    “The corporation should ensure that it keeps on pumping petrol to both major and independent marketers’ depots to reduce the scarcity,” he said.

    The chairman appealed to NNPC management to ensure that it carried along all stakeholders in the oil and gas sector so that the fuel scarcity could end as promised.

    Korodo urged the corporation to maintain the current loading system at depots.

    NAN reports that the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, on March 29, said that the long queues in the petrol stations would disappear by April 7.

    Kachikwu made the statement when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) over the lingering fuel scarcity in the country.

    He apologised to Nigerians over his statement that the fuel scarcity would linger till May.

     

  • How Nigerians feel about fuel scarcity


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