Prudent Energy, 55 Others Get Licenses to Import Gasoline into Nigeria

By Fasilat Oluwuyi, Energy Access Reporter,  AOGR

Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), has disclosed that a total of 56 marketing companies have now gotten the license to import fuel in Nigeria.

Ahmed listed Prudent Energy, AYM Shafa and Emadeb as the three companies currently importing PMS, adding that others will commence importation between August and September 2023.

The NMDPRA head, who was fielding questions by reporters, reiterated that government no longer determines the price of Gasoline (PMS) in Nigeria, but the market.

The subsidy on PMS in the country formally ended on May 29, 2023, the inauguration date of president Bola Tinubu. The deregulation of the market took off on that date.

Ahmed explained that 10 of the 56 companies licenced to import PMS have indicated to supply within the third quarter which is July, August and September. “And out of those, we already received some cargoes from some of these Marketers”.

“Ahmed pointed out  that the fact that cargoes of PMS imported by  Prudent Energy, AYM Shafa and Emadeb, arrived on July 19, 2023, was an “encouraging sign that the market is liberated and everyone is free to import so long as you are working within the framework especially in terms of quality.”

Mele Kyari, NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer,who was at the interactive session with reporters, said the upward rise in prices of PMS in the last six weeks of the deregulation has nothing to do with supply of PMS.

”There is no supply issue”, Kyari explained. “When you go to the market you buy the product, you come to the market and sell it at prevailing market price. There is nothing to do with supply, we don’t have supply issues.

”What I know is that the market forces will regulate the market, prices will go down sometimes and sometimes, it will go up but there will be stability of supply” he said