Petrol prices in Nigeria’s major cities have shut up again, even as some have shut down their stations.
Newsafricng.com investigation reveals that some of the stations aren’t out of fuel but refused to sell in anticipation of increase in price of petrol.
In Ikorodu area of Lagos state, it was discovered that some of the stations shut down on Saturday afternoon and only reopened on Tuesday to announce new high prices.
Major stations like Ranoil, Empire and other petroleum products marketers within the FCT Abuja have increased their pump prices by between N55 and N60.
They now sell between N1,275 and N1,280 per litre at the close of business on Monday.
This means that, in less than a week, major filling station outlets have adjusted their petrol pump prices by at least N100 per litre.
Depot owners have also raised their ex-depot prices to between N1,249 and N1,270 per litre as of Monday night.
The surge in fuel prices comes barely a week after Dangote Refinery resumed the sale of refined petroleum products in dollars.
The 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery pegged its petrol gantry price at $0.779 per litre, diesel at $1.087 per litre, and aviation fuel at $0.942 per litre.
While the refinery insisted that the gantry prices remained unchanged, some petroleum marketers claimed that the plant had suspended product loading.
Fuel attendants at NNPCL retail outlets also confirmed that their stations ran out of supply on Monday afternoon.
The development has further worsened the uncertainty in the country’s downstream oil sector over the past week.
Earlier, petroleum products marketers had lamented the high cost of imported fuel, driven by rising shipping costs and increasing crude oil prices.
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As of Monday night, West Texas Intermediate, WTI crude traded above $82 per barrel, while Brent crude rose above $87 per barrel.
Speaking on the development, the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, PETROAN, Billy Gillis-Harry, and the spokesperson of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, blamed the fuel price volatility on uncertainty surrounding global crude oil prices and Dangote Refinery’s resumption of refined products sales in dollars.
Gillis-Harry noted that this was not the time for the Federal Government to sit on the fence over petrol pricing.
According to him, the Federal Government needs to intervene urgently to protect Nigerians from the adverse impact of the latest fuel price hike.
“The Federal Government’s intervention is key. The Federal Government should step in over Dangote Refinery’s resumption of refined products sales in dollars.
“Most of our members are unable to load products in dollars. We don’t want the downstream sector to be dollarised,” he told DAILY POST.
Ukadike said the Federal Government should immediately resume talks with Dangote Refinery on the sale of refined products in naira by reactivating the Naira-for-Crude deal.
“We support the reactivation of the Naira-for-Crude deal with Dangote Refinery. We want to sell cheaper petroleum products to Nigerians.
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“Some of our members’ stations are closed because we could not obtain products in naira. The Federal Government should resume talks with Dangote Refinery before the situation gets out of hand,” he said.
