The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has advised the Federal Government to allow investors to take over the running of the country’s three refineries.

National Secretary of IPMAN, Alhaji Danladi Pasali, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

He spoke while reacting to a report that the pump price of petrol might likely get to N190 per litre and the price of crude oil hit 60 dollars per barrel in the international market.

Speaking at the official launch of Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimisation Programme in Abuja, Minister State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva said with no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, cannot continue to bear the cost of under-recovery.

At present, the pump price of petrol ranges from N160 –N165, the price band set when crude traded just above 43 dollars per barrel four months ago.

Pasali, commending government’s efforts, said that IPMAN controlled 80 per cent of the downstream sectors.

“IPMAN controls 80 per cent of the downstream sectors of the industry and with our investments running into trillion, the government should give us the three refineries.

“We can run it successfully in collaboration with our foreign investors,” he said.

Pasali said that allowing investors to take over would help in making the government’s job easy and improve economic development.

He said increasing petrol price, for now, was not a good thing, as the economic index shows that the county was in economic hardship.

“The capacity of people buying the products is low now compared to before, for example, some people buy petrol of N1,500 for their cars but it was not like that in the past.”

Pasali also advised the government to call for stakeholders’ meeting to help solve the problem.

“We can look at other means because there are so many things in the oil template, for example, to see how we can reduce the tension.

“There are so many charges in the template like the unnecessary marine charges that can be reduced and it can help reduce the tension, among other suggestions.”