Nigerians may start to experience an increase in cooking gas prices, as suppliers of the commodity lamented that dollar shortage in the foreign exchange (FX) is having a negative impact on importation.
Mike Osatuyi, the National Operations Controller of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), who hinted at the cooking gas prices increment, said independent marketers sourced dollars for importation from the black market.
According to him, the inability of the marketers to source the hard currency from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would continually give room for cooking gas prices increment.
“Our members, who still sell gas, bought 20, 000 metric tonnes at around N11 million last month, but now, the price has jumped to N12.3 million per 20, 000 metric tones,” he added.
Noting the need for the naira to strengthen in the exchange market, the IPMAN chief maintained that cooking gas consumers stood the risk of further price hikes as long as the dollar continued to strengthen.
How cooking gas prices continue to soar
On a year-on-year basis, the price of refilling a 12.5kg cylinder of cooking gas, has risen up to 122% from N4,422 in July 2021. This is according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The data has it that Ebonyi State recorded the highest average retail price for refilling a 12.5kg cylinder with N11,212, followed by Delta with N10,926 and Ekiti with N10,883. Conversely, the lowest average price was recorded in Katsina at N8,355, followed by Yobe and Kano with N8,383 and N8,614 respectively.
The data, however, further revealed that the Southwest region of the country recorded the highest average retail price with N10,334, followed by the Southsouth with N10,239, while the North-East recorded the lowest price with N9,139. BizWatch Nigeria understands that all the prices are peculiar to the 12.5kg cylinder size.
