Petrol Prices Yet To Go Down
Private fuel marketers are yet to reduce the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also called petrol several days after government ordered, while retail stations belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have started selling at 125 naira per litre .
Visites to several filling stations including Oando, Mobil and Capital Oil last Monday morning , revealed that the private marketers were selling at 145 naira per litre of petrol. The question most marketers are asking government is who is going to account for the difference between the old price and the new price on their old stock?
A top official of one of the fuel marketers’ associations said on condition of anonymity that marketers would continue to sell the product at the old rate pending when certain issues would be resolved.
“Marketers are holding their strategy session, we will have a common front . The Group Managing Director of the NNPC has invited us for a stakeholders’ meeting which should have been done before the announcement of the new price and very soon we will have a clearer picture of how they are going to involve us,” he added.
The Federal Government had noted on Wednesday, 19 March that the drop in crude oil prices had lowered the expected open market price of imported petrol below the official pump price of N 145 per litre and thereby approved that Nigerians should benefit from the reduction in the price of PMS which is a direct effect of the crash in global crude oil prices.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, in a statement said that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) would subsequently issue a monthly guide to the NNPC and marketers on the appropriate pricing regime . The NNPC subsequently directed all its retail station to change the retail pump price to 125 naira per litre from 145 naira.
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, said the corporation had reviewed its ex-coastal, ex-depot and NNPC retail pump prices in compliance with the directives of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources on the pricing of PMS. He said, “ Effective March 19, NNPC ex-coastal price for PMS has been reviewed downwards from N117.6/litre to N 99.44/litre while the ex-depot price is reduced from N133.28/litre to N113.28/litre.
“These reductions will, therefore, translate to N125/litre retail pump price.
Despite the obvious cost implication of this immediate adjustment to the corporation, NNPC is delighted to effect this massive reduction of N20/litre for the benefit of all Nigerians.
Has there been any reduction of petrol price in your locality? Comments and remarks are welcome.
SOURCE: opr.new
