PETROL subsidy may gulp upto N2tn this year if the current situation persists, Group Managing Director, Rainoil Limited, Gabriel Ogbechie, has stated.
Ogbechie made the statement on Sunday at the Nigeria History Series of the Centre for Values in Leadership, themed ‘Indigenous participation in the downstream oil and gas sector’ moderated by Prof. Pat Utomi.
He lamented the lack of deregulation in the downstream sector, adding that the government was spending about N8m daily on petrol subsidy.
He described the sector as highly regulated, saying, “I wonder if there is any other sector of the economy that is as regulated as the downstream.”
He said, “The biggest elephant in the room today as far as the downstream is concerned is the failure, so to speak, of the government to deregulate the downstream – fixing the price at which petroleum products are sold, I believe, is very seriously harmful to this economy.”
According to Ogbechie, the landing cost of the petrol imported into the country is about N300 per litre, based on the current naira-dollar exchange rate.
