Victor Ezeja
AdminThe Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has said the non-functional state of the Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State has pushed many of people out of business by hampering the movement of persons, goods and services.
The body disclosed this during the Port Harcourt Depot Unit‘s 2023 Annual General Meeting/Election held in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, where Tekena Ikpaki, was elected as Chairman.
This was even as stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sub-sector under the auspices of Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA) have assured that the prevailing crises in the energy sector would soon end with the expected resumption of operations at the Port Harcourt refinery in January.
Speaking with newsmen, Ikpaki charged the Federal Government to quickly complete the ongoing repairs at the refinery, stressing that the delay in getting the plant on steam was negatively affecting businesses in the axis.
While noting that his administration will ensure better leadership of the IPMAN, he said, “It is our sole duty to make sure that everybody is satisfied, even if man’s desires are insatiable. We will try our best to ensure that products that will come from the refinery when it is complete gets to our members and then it gets to our communities.
“The non-functionality of the refinery has crippled a lot of businesses, and a lot of people have gone out of business. People who cannot sustain themselves with the little that is available to them.
“Goods and services as we know moving from one part of the country to another is transportation and this works with petroleum products. The dilapidation of the refinery has affected movement of goods and services.”
Meanwhile, the National President and Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of NOGASA, Mr Kenneth Korie said they were 100 per cent confident that the prices of petroleum products would crash when the refineries begin to function again from January.
Korie, who blamed the current hike in prices of the products on importation, said rehabilitation and upgrade of the refineries in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri, which he said works on have reached advanced stages, remain the sure way of collapsing the prices of the products.
According to him: “Yes, of course there is hope. The GMD NNPC has given assurance concerning that before the National Assembly. In all my talks, I have been hammering on the Port Harcourt Refinery to come on steam.
“I’m 100% sure that there will be a serious reduction in the price of petroleum products as soon as our four refineries including the Dangote Refinery, come up. But we should not expect the price to come down like it was before, because of the high exchange rate, but it will be a bit lower than what it is now.”
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