Ngelale, however, agreed that having refineries in Nigeria would eliminate cost of importing petroleum products
By Kehinde Okeowo
Aguri Ngelale, Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has argued that building more refineries in Nigeria will not bring down fuel pump prices.
He made this known during a recent interview on TVC, while urging Nigerians to disregard the myth that more refineries would translate to cheaper petroleum products.
He went on to assert that the prices of the products in countries that have refineries and produce oil are not different from those of countries without refineries.
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He, however, agreed that having more refineries in Nigeria would save the country the cost that would have gone into importing fuel products.
Speaking during the chat Ngelale said: “That is a myth; it does not happen anywhere in the world; even if we had the most refineries producing the most PMS in the world, you would find that the most prolific PMS producers with their refineries do not charge differently from the countries without refineries. I am not saying that we should not have refineries, but there are benefits to having working refineries”
The federal government during the standoff with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) promised that the Port Harcourt refinery would be revitalized in December 2023.
Also, former President, Muhammadu Buhari, inaugurated the Dangote refinery at the twilight of administration.