…Cooking gas prices to drop
The Federal Government has declared the pump price of petrol will remain at N162 until it agrees with the Organised Labour for full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, stated this in a chat with newsmen in Abuja.
According to him, it is now constitutional for Nigeria to deregulate the oil and gas sector.
However, when he was asked to state the deregulation date, the minister refused to reveal the time. He noted: “I cannot give you a timeline now. But it is not going to be too far from now because we have done quite a lot of extensive work.”
The Minister said as soon as the government and the Organised Labour agree on the process of putting infrastructure in place, Nigeria will deregulate.
He submitted: “So, we will keep it here at N162 within that band now for the time being, but we are also at the moment trying to work out to allow the deregulation to come to fruition”. He further revealed that the oil industry has cut costs by 5 percent.
The Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, according to him, is actually leading in that process, adding that a lot of jobs have been done on the deregulation process
He further informed that President Muhammadu Buhari will speak on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) today, Wednesday.
