A former governorship candidate in Rivers State, Pastor Tonye Cole, has said that Nigerian refineries cannot sell a litre of Premium Motor Spirit for N700 or below at this point.

Cole said this hours after the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, announced that Port Harcourt refinery has kicked off refining of crude oil.

The NNPC said the plant will begin at 60 percent capacity with 60,000 barrels per day.The NNPCL also said that the Warri Refinery will soon commence petroleum product production.

Despite this development, the Rivers-born business mogul said there were other components which had to do with the importation of machineries.

“The price being sold in Nigeria is lower than what an imported cargo would land at,” Tonye Cole, a two-time governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State said.“As a result of that, most people are not bothered to import.

“So, Nigerians are already benefiting from that. Secondly, the volume of consumption in Nigeria has dropped, as a result of that, the pressure you used to have on foreign exchange has gone down because we’re no longer importing that much.

“What you’re selling is in naira, naira is what you use in buying crude, so we’re already feeling the impact of that,” he added.On why the product is not being sold below N700, Cole said, I don’t think we’ll get it [N700].

“There are certain things you still need to deal with. There are many components you’re still bringing in.

“All the things that were refurbished at the refinery were refurbished with products and machineries brought in from outside the country.“So we still have a huge foreign exchange component we have to deal with.”