New Price Regime For Petroleum Products Takes Off As NNPCL Announces Pump Prices

By Ayodele Oni

Despite assurances by the federal government that the new price regime for petroleum products occasioned by withdrawal of subsidy will not be effective until June ending, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has instructed all marketers to adjust retail prices for the premium motor spirit, (petrol) to a range between N488 to N555 per litre.

The instruction which was released Wednesday to marketers, cited management approval of the upward review of the NNPC PMS pump price table for Mega/Standard/Leased Stations.

The new table of retail prices is different from one geopolitical zone to the other with the north east zone having the highest.

Geopolitical zones of the country to be affected by retail managers were instructed to take immediate effect beginning from May 31, 2023.

According to the new price schedule, petrol will sell highest in Maiduguri and Damaturu at N557 per litre, and N550 per litre in the rest of the Northeast zone.

Birnin Kebbi will buy petrol at N545 to lead prices in the Northwest zone. The average price in the North Central zone will be N537 per litre except in Ilorin where it will sell for N515 per litre. Consumers in the Southeast will buy at an average of N520 per litre.

Apart from Uyo and Yenegoa where petrol will now sell at N515 per litre, the rest of the South south zone will get the product at N511 per litre.

Consumers in Lagos will buy the product at N488 per litre while the rest of the Southwest zone will get the product at N500 per litre.

Checks also showed a similar trend in Lagos State where NNPCL now retails fuel at N488 per litre at its stations at Old Ota Road, Abule-Egba, Lagos, while the NNPC Mega Station, Lagos Bus Stop, at Port Harcourt on Wednesday sells for N511 per litre.

In Plateau State, the Pump price is now N537/ litre at NNPC stations.

This change by the national oil company is providing clarity around prices after the removal of the controversial fuel subsidy which cost almost $10 billion annually.

NNPC is the sole supplier of petrol in Nigeria today and it is now expected that other marketers will take a queue from the NNPC prices and adjust their own pump price immediately.

Analysts say since NNPC has affected different pump prices for different cities, this may mean that not only has subsidy gone, but also that the wasteful price equalization mechanism which ensured petrol had the same official price all over Nigeria was also gone.

NNPC is reported to have based the new price regime on the exchange rate.