The landing cost of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) imported into the country has risen by over 60 percent between the months of December 2020 and mid-June this year, despite this, the price of petroleum at retail outlets remains the same.
The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, said on March 25 that with the current market situation, the actual price of petrol could have been anywhere between N211 and N234 per litre.
He said the Federal Government was subsidising petrol with about N100bn to N120bn monthly (N3.3bn-N4bn daily) as it was being sold for N162 per litre.
The average landing cost of petrol as of December 2020 stood at N143.60 per litre, it has since shot up to N231.98 per as of June 16, 2021, following oil price recovery in the international market as well as the lowering value of the local currency against the dollar.
In March this year, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) issued a pricing template that marked the guiding prices for the month.
According to the template which was published on the agency’s website, petrol pump price was expected to sell at between N209.61 to N212.61 per litre. This proposed retail price was met with widespread public outcry and was later removed by the agency from its website.
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However, the pump price of petrol has not changed from between N162 and N165 per litre at retail outlets in Lagos since December.
The template, which was benchmarked on an average oil price of $62.22 per barrel for the month of February and an exchange rate of N403.80 to a dollar, showed that the landing cost of petrol was N189.61 per litre.
In May, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reviewed the value of the naira downward as it settled for the NAFEX exchange rate of N410.25 per dollar as the official exchange rate, days after removing the N379/$ rate from its website.
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