Abuja — Minister of Petroleum, Alhaji Rilwan Lukman has said the persistent fuel scarcity in the country has no immediate solution. Federal lawmakers had last week threatened to arrest Lukman, if he fails to appear before the House committee on Petroleum (down stream) which he had shunned its invitations several times.

Rilwan who appeared before the committee also said the persistent fuel scarcity in the Country will continue due to inability of the Federal Government to tackle the logistics of product supply, vandalisation of petroleum pipelines and payment of huge debt owed independent marketers by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

He told the lawmakers that the only solution for improving petroleum supply in the country is for the nation to embrace deregulation of the oil sector. He said that the programme for deregulation of oil sector in the country has been accentuated in the Petroleum Industry Bill which he implored lawmakers to pass.

In his words, "Nigeria had only two options, the first of which is deregulation, while the alternative according to him is for the government to sustain the status quo ante and hence contend with attendant problems".

He told the Committee members that if Nigeria chooses to manage with the present situation without deregulation, the consequence would be that the Federal government would continue to commit huge funds for subsidy of petroleum product; a development which he stressed would have a negative impact on national budgets.

The funds committed to subsidy in Nigeria, said Lukman has been so enormous, and has in effect been making nonsense of successive budgets in Nigeria, stressing that Federal Government has no capacity to sustain the huge losses coming from petroleum subsidy.

Lukman told the lawmakers that the poor state of petroleum refineries in Nigeria was part of the problem of product scarcity as the four refineries in the country were getting outdated, just as no new ones were being built.

He recalled that the past civilian government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo made efforts towards increasing the numbers of refineries in the country by licensing 18 companies to build refineries, disclosing that up till date, not one of the companies had erected a pillar for that purpose.

He said the lack of favourable regulation in the petroleum industry in Nigeria was the reason no one showed interest in building refineries as according to him, anyone who did so would have risked operating at losses.

The present government, he added was however not relenting efforts in managing the problem. In that regard, he said the government has been making contracts with foreign investors with a view to mobilizing them for building of more refineries for the country.

The minister however gave a cheering report about the state of Kaduna refinery against the backdrop of last Turn around Maintenance carried out on it, disclosing that the refinery which he said was producing less than 900,000 barrels of oil per day has not turned around to be producing more than 1.5 million of fuel.

Lawmakers who were at the meeting with the Minister of Petroleum expressed dissatisfaction over the perennial problem of scarcity of petroleum products in Nigeria ,blaming the problem on Petroleum Ministry over its inability to find a lasting solution to the shortage of petroleum product.