Deregulation has reduced petrol consumption by 30% - Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and immediate past Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Ibe Kachikwu has said that the deregulation of the downstream oil sector with the resultant increase in the pump price of petrol has led to the reduction of 30 % in the consumption of the commodity.

Kachikwu said this at the NNPC Towers, Abuja on Friday while handing over to the new Group Managing Director of the corporation, Maikanti Baru.

“We undertook deregulation at the time nobody thought it was possible and if there’s anything we leave for this industry, it must be the legacy of that deregulation.

“Today our consumption of fuel has gone down by 30 per cent; we have no queues in the filling stations; we have one and a half months of self sufficiency; we have strategic reserves in place that we are putting together and we have a funding scheme to enable the downstream to be able to adequately fund itself.

“We have succeeded in removing subsidy and saving over N1.4tn for this country on a yearly basis. We have reduced upstream contracting period from the average of between two and half years to between six and nine months and we have started a massive commercialisation of every aspect of our business,” he said.