Consumers of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) have faced a Herculean task procuring the product lately. This is due to resurgent scarcity and attendant long queues at petrol filling station. The anxiety that there might be a price increase would be heighten by the declaration by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) that it could no longer sell at the official pump price of N165 per litre.
It is therefore cheering news for consumers when the authorities in Nigeria’s oil sector affirmed on Thursday that the price of the product had not increased.
Ugbugo Ukoha, the executive director, Distribution Systems, Storage, and Retail Infrastructure (NMDPRA), said this while touring some petrol filling stations in Lagos.
Ukoha cited the conflict between Russia and Ukraine for hike in diesel price. He said diesel is used in transporting petroleum products from depots to retailers and, as a result, tend to impact cost.
“So, when we observed that this poses a big challenge in the movement of other products, we made the representation to the minister of state for petroleum and Mr. President graciously approved that the freight rate for trucks be increased.
“There’s a N10 addition, which we will apply to the different routes to enable trucks to move to docks easily with less burden. With these kinds of efforts from the government, we can only continue to appeal to operators within this industry to play by the rules
“PMS is a regulated product and the prices are fixed. The ex-depot price is known. The pump price remains N165 and the authority is ever ready to enforce those rules. So, we will continue to urge Nigerians to keep within these operating rules”, Ukoha said, adding that the focus of the stakeholders in the next few days would be to close the supply gap and resolve the ongoing scarcity of petrol as soon as possible.
Adetunji Adeyemi, group executive director, downstream, NNPC, said the state oil company has “about 2 billion litres of PMS that will last 34 days supply”.
“There is sufficient petrol in the country. We are working with the entire stakeholders and players in the downstream sector to ensure that this product gets to the distribution channels and also the stations. We want Nigerians to continue to enjoy the free flow of petroleum products”, he said.
