Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has said that it is not planning to increase fuel pump prices at its retail stations.
The company made this announcement in a post seen by Business Post via its official X (formerly Twitter) account late Monday night.
“Dear esteemed customers, we at NNPC Retail value your patronage, and we do not have the intention to increase our PMS pump prices as widely speculated. Please buy the best quality products at the most affordable prices at our NNPC Retail Stations nationwide,” the statement read.
Speculations had risen in the last few days that fuel prices at the pump would reach as high as N720 per litre in the coming days. This is further spurred by the fact that oil marketers’ landing cost of petrol has risen month-on-month by 37.4 per cent to N632.17 per litre in July 2023 from N460 per litre in June 2023.
A breakdown showed that product cost per litre was at N578.46, freight (Lome-Lagos) at N10.37, port charges at N7.37, NMDPRA levy of N4.47, storage cost at N2.58, Marine insurance cost at N0.47, fendering cost at N0.36 and ”others” at N0.05 as well as a finance cost amounting to N28.04, according to an analysis by the Vanguard newspapers.
The publication also stated that the transactional analysis put the landing cost of 28,000 metric tons of imported petrol at over $25 million, including total product cost, total direct cost, and total finance cost, capable of generating more than N22 billion as sales revenue, indicating a loss of over N1.6 billion.
This was further worsened by the rate of closed filling stations in the city of Lagos, as confirmed by this newspaper yesterday.
Recall that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to proceed with an indefinite nationwide shutdown of the country if there is another increase in the pump price of petrol from the existing N617 per litre, which it describes as illegal.
The situation around the foreign exchange market in the country is having an impact on the importation of the commodity since Nigeria doesn’t haven’t local refining capacity yet.
In May, at the launch of the Dangote refinery, Mr Aliko Dangote said that the first batch of crude would be ready for consumption between July and August, but this was recently extended to 2025.
