Mele Kyari Says NNPC Back To Being Sole Importer Of Petrol, Blames Forex Issues

Barely five months after Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited said the company would no longer be the sole importer of petrol into the country, he has said foreign exchange issues have not allowed private companies to import petroleum products.

He said: “We are the only company importing petrol into the country. None of them can do it today. For them, access to foreign exchange is difficult. We create foreign exchange (FX), therefore we have access to FX, while their access to FX is limited.”

Oil and gas analyst, Kayode Oluwadare said that the revelation by Kyari is unofficial confirmation that petrol subsidy is back in Nigeria.

According to Oluwadare, one of the things deregulation (petrol subsidy removal) was supposed to do was to allow independent marketers to import petrol on their own terms.

However, now that the NNPCL has restored the status quo as the sole importer, it shows that the country is back to the petrol subsidy regime.
Oluwadare says that this move was necessary because of the constant pressure the government has been under since the official removal of petrol subsidies.

He said: “The government is gradually bringing back the conditions of the fuel subsidy regime. We are now back to the status quo. In the coming days, the petrol pump price will remain the same. We may also see the petrol pump price slightly coming down, with the current global trend, we are not likely to see an increase in petrol pump prices.”