Scarcity of Aviation Fuel Not Peculiar To Nigeria- Sirika

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has explained that the scarcity of aviation fuel was not peculiar to Nigeria.
Sirika, who spoke to State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa, said the scarcity and high cost of Jet A1 was a global phenomenon driven by many factors.

He stated , “ the scarcity and high cost of Jet A1 in civil aviation is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global phenomenon driven by many factors. Some of them includes even low capacity to refine the product. It’s also high demand around the world, it has increased activity and increased number of airplanes out there and users of this jet A1

Sirika stressed that the Ukraine crisis and many other factors are also responsible for the scarcity.

“It’s a time when crude itself is so expensive today, it is in the hundreds of dollars per barrel and only the high cost of Jet A1 product in Nigeria. Also the peculiarity of the fact that we’re not refining the product, so to speak”, the minister said.

He explained that as an interim measure to tackle the problem, “there was an agreement that the airline operators in the country would nominate either from among themselves or from other major oil marketers to be given the opportunity to import this product.

“Then they will also get the necessary foreign exchange for that purpose. And that will now increase more supply and perhaps drive down the cost. So the scarcity is not unique to Nigeria.

“And unfortunately we’re going through this phase, but civilization from time always survives challenges. They come unfortunately but then you see civil aviation graphs keeps going up, he said.

“We hope that this is a temporary thing around the world and we hope that Jet A1 will be very available everywhere and at the very good price.

“We also hope that in the future, we will learn to do away with all these carbon emitters and have much more cleaner energy, which will be more readily available for everybody at a very cheaper cost to make civil aviation transportation, the preferred choice”, the minister added.