Timipre Sylva, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, has urged Nigerians to be ready to take the pains of increased petrol pump price as crude oil price goes up above $60 per barrel.
Sylva explained that with no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) couldn’t continue to bear the cost of under-recovery.
The former Bayelsa Governor disclosed this at the official launch of Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimisation Program on Tuesday.
According to Sylva: “Since we’re optimizing everything, NNPC needs to also think about the optimization of product cost because as we all know, oil prices are where they’re today, $60.
“As desirable as this, this has serious consequences as well on product prices. So we want to take the pleasure, and we should as a country, be ready to take the pain.
“Today the NNPC is taking a big hit from this. We all know that there is no provision in the budget for subsidy.
“So, somewhere down the line, I believe that the NNPC can’t continue to take this blow. There’s no way because there’s no provision for it.
“As a country, let us take the benefits of the higher crude oil prices, and I hope we’ll also be ready to take a little pain on the side of higher product prices.”
Currently, the pump price of petrol ranges from N160 –N165, the price set when crude traded just above $43 per barrel, a few months ago.