Federal Government has said that many private investors are not motivated to establish refineries in Nigeria because of the continued subsidy on Petrol.

Speaking through its Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, it explained that investors are not keen to construct refineries despite being issued licences to do so ten years ago.

The government agency disclosed this is in a statement on fighting economic sabotage through the deregulation of the downstream sector in Abuja.

Nigeria has been subsidizing petrol through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, as the firm recently declared that the huge subsidy on petrol will hinder it from making remittances to the Federation Account in May and June this year.

Taking the huge benefits of deregulating the downstream sector into account, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency argued that only economic saboteurs who were adverse to the country’s socio-economic development would be against such a full deregulation policy.