The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria has advised President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime to allow investors to take over the running of the country’s three refineries.

Danladi Pasali, National Secretary of IPMAN, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday.

He spoke while reacting to a report that the pump price of petrol might likely get to N190 per litre and the price of crude oil hit $60 per barrel in the international market.

Speaking at the official launch of the Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimisation Programme in Abuja, Minister State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva had said with no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, could not continue to bear the cost of under-recovery.

At present, the pump price of petrol ranges from N160 to N165, and the price band set when crude traded just above $43 per barrel four months ago.

Mr. Pasali commending the government’s efforts, said, “IPMAN controls 80 percent of the downstream sectors of the industry, and with our investments running into trillion, the government should give us the three refineries. We can run it successfully in collaboration with our foreign investors.”

He added that allowing investors to take over would help make the government’s job easy and improve economic development.

He noted that increasing the petrol price, for now, was not a good thing, asserting, “The capacity of people buying the products is low now compared to before, for example, some people buy petrol of N1,500 for their cars, but it was not like that in the past.”

Mr. Pasali also advised the government to call for stakeholders’ meeting to help solve the problem.

“We can look at other means because there are so many things in the oil template, for example, to see how we can reduce the tension.

“There are so many charges in the template like the unnecessary marine charges that can be reduced and it can help reduce the tension, among other suggestions.”