Kyari, who arrived at the premises at about 12.30 pm, was received warmly by the chairman and members of the National Working Committee.

Although the agenda of the meeting was not revealed, sources at the national headquarters of the party said it may not be unconnected with the removal of petroleum subsidy, which was further amplified on Monday by President Bola Tinubu.

Tinubu had affirmed during his swearing-in ceremony that his administration would not continue to pay subsidies on petroleum products.

The Federal Government, Tinubu said, was struggling to fund subsidies, noting that the payment was no longer justifiable.

The development had triggered a 100 percent hike in transport fares, while long queues resurfaced at fuel stations across Lagos, Abuja, Ilorin, Benin, Asaba, Port Harcourt, Kano, Makurdi, and other major cities across the country.
To worsen the situation, many fuel outlets shut their facilities and refused to dispense fuel to motorists, further creating scarcity and panic buying at the fuel stations that were opened to customers.

Similarly, on Thursday, Kyari also allayed the fear of Nigerians on the rising prices of Premium Motor Spirit, better known as petrol across the country.

Kyari, while speaking at the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Summit organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption in Abuja on Wednesday, stated that the landing cost of fuel was thrice the amount.

Kyari stated, “It is not possible for you to buy fuel at N170 when your actual cost is thrice that value.

“For instance, today, when PMS comes into this country, we transfer to marketers at N113 per litre for us to ensure N165 at the pump.

“So, you must sell at N113 to them to be able to deliver at N165, that means whatever the cost, anything after that value; that is subsidy. Somebody has to pay for it.

“Everyone knows the price of PMS around the world. There is nowhere today that you can land a litre of PMS to the pumps at the N445 (to a dollar) exchange rate. It is not possible.

“In some places, you are subsidising up to N290 on every litre. With this regime, it is impossible for you to avoid all the wrong things that are happening – round tripping, cross-border smuggling, document forgery. Anywhere you have arbitrage, you will have these issues. As long as arbitrage is there, you will continue to have these issues and you cannot hold NNPC accountable for it because it is a value chain that involves everything and everybody.

You cannot price it at the market today because of the socio-economic impact on the prices of PMS. Every country is doing something about high energy costs. Some have removed taxes on petroleum; this is a subsidy. NNPC Limited will no longer go to FAAC because we are expected to pay taxes, dividend and royalty.”

The GMD also stated that he has been receiving death threats over the reforms he was spearheading in the oil and gas industry.

Kyari further stated that he was not deterred by the threats.

He said, “Without mincing words, I want to say that this industry is at a threshold of change.

“There is massive change going on and it is very expensive and of personal cost to many people, including myself. There is a threat to life; I can say this.

“I have several death threats but we are not bothered about this. We believe that no one dies unless it is his time.

But this is the cost of change. When people move away from what they are used to, to something that is new; that will take away value and benefit from them, they will react.

“That reaction is of benefit to all of us and we will work together to make sure it works out.”

The NNPC boss said this at the presentation of the World Bank Nigeria Development Update, November 2021 edition titled “Time for Business Unusual” on Tuesday, November 23.

He said, “There will be no provision for it legally in our system, but I am also sure you will appreciate that government has a bigger social responsibility to cater for the ordinary and therefore engage in a process that will ensure that we exit in the most subtle and easy manner.”

Kyari assured that fuel subsidy removal would definitely be achieved in 2022 as it was now fully backed by law, adding that the price of the product may range between N320 and N340 per litre.

On the hike in prices of cooking gas, he said that it was a demand and supply issue as there was a global crunch on supply of gas and many countries were now threatened by lack of supply in December.

He however gave an assurance that the company was working on increasing local production to meet consumption demands.

The national oil company has maintained an ex-depot price of N148/litre since February despite the hike in the actual cost of the commodity, hence incurring a subsidy of over N120bn monthly.

Ex-depot price is the cost of petrol at depots, from where filling stations purchase the commodity before dispensing to final consumers.

Kyari also announced on Monday that Petroleum Tanker Drivers had suspended their proposed strike after the intervention of NNPC in the impasse between the PTD and the National Association of Road Transport Owners.

The NNPC tweeted these via its official Twitter handle on Monday.

It said, “Following GMD #NNPC Mallam @MKKyari’s intervention in the National Association of Road Transport Owners/Petroleum Tanker Drivers impasse, PTD has just announced the suspension of its planned strike until closure of discussion between both parties. Also, the GMD announced that there would be no increase in the ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit in the month of May 2021.”

In March, the NNPC said it would maintain its ex-depot price for petrol until the conclusion of ongoing engagement with the organised labour and other stakeholders.

It was gathered that the engagement with labour on petrol price had yet to be resolved, hence the continued maintenance of the current ex-depot price despite fluctuations in global oil prices.

The group general manager, group public affairs division of NNPC, Kennie Obateru,  disclosed this in a statement released on Friday, March 26.

This development comes hours after the group managing director of the corporation, Mele Kyari, announced that the NNPC can no longer bear the cost of the subsidy. Kyari had said the NNPC can no longer bear the burden of underpriced sales of petrol, adding that the market price needs to be implemented. He said NNPC pays between N100-120 billion a month to keep the pump price at the current levels.

Obateru in the statement released said although the NNPC currently bears the burden of petrol subsidy, the current price will be maintained at N162 until ongoing engagement with the organized labour and other stakeholders are concluded.

According to him, NNPC has made arrangements for robust stock of petroleum products in all its strategic depots across the country to keep the nation well supplied at all times.

He urged petroleum product marketers to desist from arbitrary price increase or hoarding of petrol.

The spokesman also warned against panic buying, stressing that NNPC was committed to ensuring energy security.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari who attended the meeting on Thursday, November 26, stated that the cooperation cannot unilaterally announce a reversal of the new price without consultation.

Both the labour and government team led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha then agreed that the meeting should be adjourned to December 7.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige said;

“By Monday, December 7, we will come back, because the message from the organised labour is clear. They want a reversal of the pump price to what it was. So, the government side will take it back to our principals. Even though the government is not fixing the price of premium motor spirit (PMS) anymore because it is deregulated, it is part of the economy. So, the government side will consult anybody that needs to be consulted. We will consult the President as the Minister of Petroleum and then, the Economic Management team because funds are involved.”

He assured them that NNPC would “diligently” implement the agreement reached between the labour leaders and Federal Government.

After a marathon meeting with the FG on Sunday, the organised labour suspended its planned nationwide industrial action for two weeks.

Among the agreements reached the meeting was that NNPC would expedite the rehabilitation of the nation’s four refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna and to achieve 50 per cent completion for Port Harcourt by December 2021, while timelines and delivery for Warri and Kaduna will be established by the inclusive Steering Committee.

On the issue of electricity tariff reforms, the parties agreed to set up a Technical Committee comprising Ministries, Departments, Agencies, NLC and TUC, which will work for a duration of two weeks effective from Monday, September 28.

Kyari tweeted after the meeting “We reached an accord to suspend the planned strike action, great responsibility for both government and Labour, all serving the common good, the beneficial challenge for NNPC, we will follow through diligently. Being a former Union leader, I understand the difficulties of Labour leadership when faced with choices between stark realities and legitimate follower expectations. The leadership chose the pursuit of common good and posterity will vindicate us all for standing with our country. NLC and TUC demonstrated absolute faith in our country and showed an understanding of the inevitability of PMS deregulation and jointly charted a way forward to secure local refining sufficiency through greater stakeholder inclusiveness and transparency. We will follow through diligently.”

Kyari said some cabals which he failed to identify perpetrated the fraud in the oil industry.

He said, “The crude oil is a global commodity and its price is not hidden. Everyone can calculate and know how much the cost of every final product from the crude at the international market is. Since the inception of the country, the government has been paying subsidy on petrol to make it cheaper for Nigerians to buy below the cost price. This subsidy is designed to assist the masses of Nigeria; that is the intention, but in reality, the masses are not the beneficiaries. First, the masses are not the owners of the exotic cars buying fuel, owning the filling stations and doing the oil business. This subsidy that the government has been paying over the years is the root of all the atrocities and fraud committed in this country. If you look at it from 2006 till 2020, we have spent over N10tn on fuel subsidy. Apart from that, there is also a subsidy on foreign currencies. Everybody knows how much is dollar in the market, but the government is also subsidising it. So, this and the fuel subsidy within this period is around N14tn to N15tn. What was happening with the subsidy is that some marketers were smuggling fuel to other neighbouring countries because it was cheaper in Nigeria due to the subsidy. Another one is those who use fake documents and bring to the government to collect subsidy for fuel they never imported and the previous government was paying them. So, it was not the masses of Nigeria that were enjoying this subsidy except some cabals, who are rich and powerful.”

In an interview with Channels Television, Kyari maintained that the issue of subsidy has been a big issue in the country for many years and the government can no longer afford it because of the economic issues facing the country.

He said “The outburst is very understandable but I also believe very strongly that it is misplaced because Nigerians are not aware of the opportunities lost.  And not only that, every corruption that you are aware of in the downstream industry is one way or the other connected to fuel subsidy.  It requires courage to make this decision, I can share this with you. Only a Buhari regime can make this decision. The subsidy in itself, is by every means an elitist thing and I can share this with you. It is only the elite that will have three, four, five cars in their houses, fill their tanks and also feel comfortable doing this. The ordinary man is not the beneficiary. First, he loses in infrastructure, hospitals are not built, schools are not built and ultimately, the brunt of the corruption in the downstream sector will be transferred to the ordinary man. So, overall, you lose everything. It is very understandable for people to get angry that prices have gone up. Just like the prices of every commodity, when it goes up, there can be difficulties and challenges that people will naturally face but once prices go up, the other natural thing that must happen is that your income needs to increase so that you are able to procure the things that are now delivered at higher prices. You can’t do this anywhere in the world if there is no productivity. And there will be no productivity except there is growth in infrastructural development, industries are able to work, therefore, there is a connection between production and consumption. What subsidy does is to remove that connection. When people get angry, this is coming from people who, practically are not aware of this situation and they are not aware of the loss that they have and most importantly they are being engineered into making those statements, and we understand this perfectly. We are the national oil company, it’s our role to ensure energy security. But you can’t do this until you are able to deliver cost. And that cost is lost daily as prices of crude oil go up and you are unable to do many things”.

Kyari said this on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.

He explained that all four refineries were functioning below capacity and it had thus become necessary to stop them from operating altogether.

NNPC boss said, “First, all the four refineries in three locations are shut down and it was a deliberate decision for two reasons. One is that delivery of crude oil to these refineries is completely challenged because the pipeline network has been completely compromised by vandals and all kinds of people that will not allow us to operate these pipelines. That means you are not able to deliver crude oil to these refineries effectively to their maximum capacity. Secondly, what you call rehabilitation is different from the turn around maintenance. Turnaround is routine which every refinery does but when you talk about rehabilitation, it is that colossal loss of capacity in the refinery and it means you haven’t done the turnaround maintenance properly. Typically, every refinery is expected to operate at 90 per cent of its installed capacity. With the best of effort, with all the turnaround maintenance that has taken place, it is impossible to run any of the refineries before the shutdown at that level. Our estimate was to run it at 60 per cent of capacity but if you do that, all you are doing is value destruction. You will take $100 crude into the refinery and bring out $70 product. It doesn’t make sense.”