Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu has declared that privatisation can save the country’s oil and gas industry.
Speaking when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum, the minister said: “Privatistion in this sector will help and I don’t think His Excellency is opposed to that.
“What he is worried about is the absence of infrastructure in place. This cannot happen unless some of the structural deficits that we have in our operations are corrected, unless the nuances of fraud are wiped out of the system, it doesn’t matter who does it, we are still going to back to square one.
“So, what else for the refineries, what else for the depots. I am not averse to private capital, private participation but clean the debt which is what we are doing.
“So, ultimately, that is where we should be headed and if you look at what we have done with the price modulation which is an indirect privatisation module for trying to determine pricing and last month we actually went down on pricing.
“This quarter, we are going to remain stable on the same pricing but as the crude prices move on, we are going to begin to have reactions to those modulations because ultimately you will never be able to repair the refineries and you now look to have investments in the depots,” Kachikwu said.
