Petrol Remains N165 Per Litre FG Warns Marketers

By Tosin Olatokunbo

Some petroleum marketers have jerked up their pumps price to at least N200 per litre of petrol in the last two weeks amidst scarcity of the products in Nigeria’s major cities. The marketers insist that they need to adjust  the price upward to remain in business.

In spite of this, the federal government has warned that it will sanction any petrol station that sells above the N165 per litre regulated price.

The development came amidst assurance by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC Ltd that the agency has enough stock of PMS, and that fuel queues will clear off in a matter of days.

There is “1.9 billion liters of PMS; Lagos is cleared in a couple of days; we will clear the queues in Abuja,” Adeyemi Adetunji, Group Executive Director, Downstream, NNPC Ltd. said.

According to Farouk Ahmed, Authority Chief Executive, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, the federal government has not increased the price of the product, warning that filling stations selling above regulated price will be shut down and sanctioned.

“We are actually trying to monitor the dispensing to ensure that all the stations with petrol are dispensing all their trucks to reduce the long queues and ensure efficiency in service” he said.

“We are monitoring the depot sales also, checking the number of trucks that loaded; this is a serious fact which we look at.

“There has been a lot of improvement in the distribution of PMS; we have gone round the Airport road and saw a lot of stations selling and discharging fuel.

“The queues are not long like before and the average trucks we have received in Abuja in the last three days are about 140 trucks against 70 trucks to 80 trucks received before; so there is a lot of improvement.

He added that credit also goes to transporters because now they are reacting to the President’s offer of additional N10 as an incentive on their transportation charges, citing improvement in operations.