BY Gabriel Omoh, Clara Nwachukwu &Yemie Adeoye

LAGOS — The Federal Government, Thursday , ordered oil and gas industry regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to crash the high cost of Household Kerosene, HHK as well as make the commodity available to the masses, who rely on the scarce commodity for their domestic use.

Handing down the orders in Lagos at an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, said the respective agencies must end the sufferings of Nigerians in accessing the product as soon as possible, even as the sector operates under a free market system.

She said: “Price of kerosene has increased so much in recent weeks, and we have directed that the DPR puts in place strong control mechanisms to arrest the situation.”





The minister blamed the scarcity and high cost of the commodity on marketers, who are profiteering from the situation at the expense of the people, but added government will not fold its arms while innocent Nigerians suffered unduly.

She noted that the NNPC, through its subsidiary, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, has sufficient product to meet national demand.

“Our investigation shows that kerosene has however become scarce and selling at high price due to distribution problems caused by middlemen who have made it their vocation to profiteer from the product.”

As a way out, the Minister charged the Managements of the NNPC and the DPR to bring to an end the ugly situation within the next few days.

Under the arrangement the NNPC through its subsidiary PPMC will ensure that products are loaded out from the three refineries and the coastal jetties to all the nooks and crannies of the country while DPR has the mandate to activate compliance measures and all necessary control strategies to squelch the incidents of arbitrary pricing and sharp practices.

Already the Corporation has swung into action by increasing the volume of HHK allocation from 10million litres to record 12million litres per day to guarantee that the country is wet with kerosene. The 12 million figure is in excess of the national consumption level of about 10million litres per day.

Elaborating further, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Austen Oniwon, said that apart from increasing the daily volume of kerosene in the market, the NNPC/PPMC has put in place a special Monitoring Committee on kerosene distribution.

The Managing Director of the PPMC, Prince Haruna Momoh, speaking on the operation of the task force, said members of the committee traversed the length and breadth of the nation tracking the movement of kerosene from the refineries and coastal depots from the point of discharge through the tank farms.

With regard to the recent revocation of three oil blocks granted to American oil giant, ExxonMobil, in 2009, Mrs. Alison_Madueke, clarified that the decision was related to issues relating to the renewal process, which she said was not properly executed, particularly with regard to the cost of the blocks and were therefore, not in compliance with the provisions of the Petroleum Act of 1969.

The Act Empowers the Minister of Petroleum Resources to cancel leases that are not properly executed.
According to the Minister, “We have a certain due process that should be followed with the renewal of their leases. Some years ago, there were some issues raised that the renewal did not tally with the actual cost of the oil blocks.”

She, however, added that government and ExxonMobil are in talks with a view to an amicable resolution of the impasse, noting that, “In sorting out any legality with the leases, issues must be handled with the intensity it deserves. I have no doubt that we will come to an agreable resolution.”

Objections on the revocation of the leases ended on Thursday, with ExxonMobil choosing the option of dialogue, as opposed to going to the courts.

The Minister, who spoke on a number of issues affecting the industry, expressed the hope that the controversial Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, will be passed by the National Assembly and accented by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan before his swearing in on May 29.