The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has clarified the statement made by the Director/Chief Executive Officer of DPR, Sarki Auwalu, on the increase of petrol price to N1,000/litre if subsidy is removed.
Recall that TheNewsBeam reported that DPR warned about the pump price of petrol in the country rising to as much as N1000 per litre when petrol subsidy regime comes to an end without an alternative energy source.
However, the department has clarified the statement made by Auwalu in a release signed by the Head of Public Affairs DPR, Paul Osu on 21st July, 2021.
According to OSU, the news on the rise in the pump price was a misinterpretation of the comments made by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) regarding subsidy removal.
Osu added that the publication’s headline is “misleading” as the comments of the Director/Chief Executive Officer, DPR, Sarki Auwalu, were “clearly taken out of context.”
He noted that the “Director specifically created a scenario of price instability of PMS based on the current dollar to naira differentials to the effect that if Nigeria continues to rely on the importation of PMS without creating alternative energy sources like CNG, LNG, AUTOGAS, etc. which will provide price buffers for consumers and ultimately crash the price of PMS, then the product will be subject to prevailing market forces.”
According to him, “the Director further re-emphasized that the strategy for alternative energy sources is a cardinal program of the government, which has led to the declaration of the Decade of Gas (DoG) to migrate the Nigerian economy to a gas-based economy by 2030.”
Osu stated that the Department would continue to enable businesses and create opportunities through its downstream focus on Quality, Quantity, Integrity, and safety (QQIS).
