Should petroleum products� marketers have their way, the price of petrol will go up to between N73 and N75 per litre in the near future unless the refineries are turned around in good time and the old practice of pumping petroleum products to depots across the country is reintroduced.
Making their position known at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)-organised annual marketers meeting held in Abuja yesterday, the Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Associa-tion of Nigeria (IPMAN), Niger State branch, Alhaji Abubakr Maigadi, said the increase was necessary because they were currently operating at a loss.
He attributed this to the fact that the amount given to them as bridging cost from the Petroleum Equalisation Fund was grossly inadequate. For instance, he said, while they receive N182,000 to transport a 33,000 litres truckload of petrol from Lagos to Minna, the actual amount the marketers spend in renting a truck for that distance is N250,000.
According to him, the need for an upward review of petroleum prices might however be obviated if President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua�s pledge to make the refineries functional soon is fulfilled.
Already, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (SAN), has admitted that the refineries could not be fully operational by December, this year, as earlier promised by the acting Group Managing Director (GMD) of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Alhaji Abubakar Yar�Adua.
Ajumogobia had blamed this on a combination of factors ranging from �underestimation of the scope of work and community problems� which were slowing down the completion of the works on the feeder pipeline that conveys crude oil to the Warri and Kaduna refineries.
Also on Tuesday, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) revealed that fuel subsidy gulped N187 billion between January and September, this year, in what was thought to be a hint of a possible push for an increase in the pump price of petrol in the new year.
At the two-day meeting for both independent and major marketers with the theme �Striving for Better Service Delivery in the Downstream Sector of the Oil and Gas Industry�, the Director of Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Tony Chukwueke, decried the arbitrary hiking of prices in parts of the country and under-dispensing occasioned by scarcity and the propensity for profiteering.
Chukwueke, who was represented by Alhaji Usman Ndanusa, lamented that many substandard consignments of diesel (AGO) destined for many stations had to be returned to the depots of take-off while some vessels with imported products were turned back to the high seas for being off-specification.
Lamenting the incidence of kerosene explosions, he noted that some of the contaminated products originated from registered or recognised sources and appealed to the marketers to be vigilant to avoid pushing off-specification products into the market to avoid kerosene explosions.
He announced measures taken by the DPR to ease delays related to licence processing such as decentralisation of the Department, but regretted that delays were still evident because of staff shortage, among others.
�Sadly, delays are being experienced because firstly the Department staff are yet to reach the numerical strength required for result-oriented implementation and secondly, the role expected of the marketer in the process is not being realised,� he said
He warned of the possibility of past malpractices associated with pressure testing in the form of bogus certificates and under-declaration of tank capacity that might occur with the leak detection exercise
The Zonal Operations Controller, DPR, Abuja, Mr. Anthony Nwaokoagbara, in his paper on �Environmental Impact Assessment and Its Implications in Downstream Operations�, deplored the practice by some influential members of society to disregard the critical role of EIA in the determination of the location of petrol filling stations, saying it was to their advantage to follow the due process by having the assessment done before starting anything.
�The EIA studies must be conducted by DPR-accredited consultants, in conjunction with DPR staff,� he said.
He defined EIA study as a planning and decision-making tool used to identify and predict the impact of action of an intended project on the bio-physical and social environment, and that as a planning tool, it is concerned with identifying, predicting and evaluating the environmental effects of developmental projects such as the establishment of refineries, depots, LPG plants and filling stations.
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