The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva has urged Nigerians to be ready to pay more for fuel as crude oil prices rise in the global market.
Speaking at the launch of Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimization Program in Abuja, he said with no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, cannot continue to bear the cost of under-recovery.
According to him, “Since we are optimizing everything, NNPC needs to also think about the optimization of product cost because as we all know oil prices are where they are today, $60.
“As desirable as this is, this has serious consequences as well on product prices. So we want to take the pleasure and we should as a country be ready to take the pain. Today the NNPC is taking a big hit from this. We all know that there is no provision in the budget for subsidy.”
he added: “So, somewhere down the line, I believe that the NNPC cannot continue to take this blow. There is no way because there is no provision for it. As a country, let us take the benefits of the higher crude oil prices and I hope we will also be ready to take a little pain on the side of higher product prices.”
