The price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol in Nigeria is to hit as high as N170 per litre as Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) hiked the ex-depot price to N155.17 per litre.
Before this action by PPMC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the ex-depot price of petrol was N147.67 per litre.
Depending on the marketer involved or the proximity of thier filling stations to the loading depot, there is always a differentials of between N12 and N15 between the ex-depot price and the pump price. This makes the N155.17 new ex-depot price to shots up the expected pump price to as high as N170 per liter.
In an internal memo with reference number PPMC/C/MK/003, dated November 11, 2020, and signed by Tijjani Ali, the company, which remains the major importer of the product
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by Platforms Africa read that the new ex-depot price would take effect from Friday.
The ex-depot price is the price at which the product is sold by the PPMC to marketers at the depots.
In its PMS price proposal for November, the PPMC put the landing cost of petrol at N128.89 per litre, up from N119.77 per litre in September/October.
It said the estimated minimum pump price of the product would increase to N161.36 per litre from N153.86 per litre.
The National Operation Controller, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr Mike Osatuyi, in a telephone interview with our correspondent, said the over N7 increase in ex-depot price would translate into an increase in pump prices.
“Like I told your colleague who called me earlier, there is going to be an increase in the pump price. We are expecting the pump price to range from N168 to N170 per litre,” he declares.
The country’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said in September that the government had stepped back in fixing the price of petrol, adding that market forces and crude oil price would continue to determine the cost of the product.
Following the deregulation of petrol prices in September, marketers across the country adjusted their pump prices to between N158 and N162 per litre to reflect the increase in global oil prices.
Petrol price band had also risen from N121.50–N123.50 per litre in June to N140.80-N143.80 in July and N148-N150 in August.
