¦Will Only Guarantee Availability Of PMS, Other Products

¦To Lower Pressure On Foreign Exchange

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has re­vealed that the prices of petrol and other petroleum products would not drop, despite the Port Harcourt refinery resumption of operations.

In an exclusive interview,with Saturday INDEPENDENT, the Chairman, PENGASSAN Port Harcourt zone, Comrade Nwoko George, explained that the prices of petroleum products would not be crashed to avoid smuggling of the products out of the country.

He said also the coming on-stream of the refinery would cre­ate jobs and mitigate the exodus of Nigerians abroad in search of greener pastures.

George noted that for the sake of competitiveness, the prices of petroleum products would not fall drastically, adding that with the coming alive of the Port Harcourt refinery, scarcity of the products would be a thing of the past.

He said, The production will commence in earnest as crude came into the plant yesterday, but that would not reduce the cost of PMS because if we do sell at a cheaper rate the smuggling of the products out of the country would continue.

So we will still maintain the competitive prices to enable us to be in the business, but I know it would put less pressure on the forex exchange that we sought for during importation of prod­ucts outside the country.

These are the two key issues I know we are going to solve. Well solve the problem of forex exchange to import the products and we will also have PMS and other products available within the country.

George warned that although the attendant consequences of the high cost of petrol would not disappear overnight, jobs would be created by the functioning re­finery in the state and the coun­try at large.

It is not rocket science, the problems of Nigeria would dis­appear at the click of a button.

One of the issues we have been trying to prove is that we need the refinery to be func­tional so that there would be job creation and also reduce the number of people leaving the country.

Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobi­ri, early this year announced that the Port Harcourt refinery would resume production by December 2023 with a target of 54,000 to 60,000 barrels of refined petroleum products per day.

He gave the assurance during a facility inspection of the refin­ery, explaining that the rehabil­itation of the first phase of the refinery had been relatively achieved and would commence production by the end of the year. (Saturday Independent)