The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu, stated that the problem of fuel scarcity would still linger till the month of May in spite of the numerous efforts put in place by the Federal Government.
He noted that the problem of long queues in the filling station cannot be solved with a magic wand as he and the members of his team are doing all it takes to bring to an end the fuel crisis.
It would be recalled that the scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, has been scarce since January.
Many stakeholders including the organised labour, petroleum marketers, oil industry workers, manufacturers and experts in the oil sector have slammed Kachikwu’s comments.
They have requested the Minister to resign his position instead of giving Nigerians excuses on why it would be impossible to get fuel easily in the country before June.
Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, spoke with State House correspondents shortly after he led a joint delegation of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He noted that the country was lucky to have the amount of fuel it has now.
He said, “One of the training I did not receive is that of a magician, but I am working very hard to ensure some of these issues go away.
“And let us be honest, for the five or six months we have been here, NNPC has moved from a 50 per cent importer of products to basically a 100 per cent importer and the 445,000 barrels per day that were allocated were to cover between 50 and 55 per cent importation.
“So it is quite frankly by sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations. We are looking to see how to get foreign exchange input; the President and I discussed extensively on how to get more crude directed at importation.
He noted that the problem of long queues in the filling station cannot be solved with a magic wand as he and the members of his team are doing all it takes to bring to an end the fuel crisis.
It would be recalled that the scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, has been scarce since January.
Many stakeholders including the organised labour, petroleum marketers, oil industry workers, manufacturers and experts in the oil sector have slammed Kachikwu’s comments.
They have requested the Minister to resign his position instead of giving Nigerians excuses on why it would be impossible to get fuel easily in the country before June.
Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, spoke with State House correspondents shortly after he led a joint delegation of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He noted that the country was lucky to have the amount of fuel it has now.
He said, “One of the training I did not receive is that of a magician, but I am working very hard to ensure some of these issues go away.
“And let us be honest, for the five or six months we have been here, NNPC has moved from a 50 per cent importer of products to basically a 100 per cent importer and the 445,000 barrels per day that were allocated were to cover between 50 and 55 per cent importation.
“So it is quite frankly by sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations. We are looking to see how to get foreign exchange input; the President and I discussed extensively on how to get more crude directed at importation.
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