The Federal Government said on Wednesday 13th June 2022 that it was currently consulting with oil marketers on issues pertaining to the price of Premium Motor Spirit popularly known as petrol, fuel queues and the payment of bridging claims among other things in the downstream oil industry. According to reliable sources in Abuja, the meeting may result in an increase in the pump price of petrol because oil marketers have repeatedly attributed the ongoing fuel queues in various regions of Nigeria to the unsustainable price of PMS. This is coming after the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria on Wednesday joined their counterparts in the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association to call on the government to gradually raise the price of PMS. IPMAN and NOGASA had earlier lobbied for an increase in the price of petrol as some IPMAN members had already started selling petrol over the N165/litre government-approved price. Some of these members currently dispense petrol at N180 per litre or more in some states including Abuja, Lagos, Ogun, Imo, and Niger, among others. According to The Punch, Kimchi Apollo, General Manager, Corporate Communications Department, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, stated that the government was actively engaging the oil dealers in response to the requests of the different marketing organizations. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited; the country’s sole petrol importer, stated that it was not in charge of setting oil prices and would not make any predictions about when the price of petroleum products will increase or decrease. Although NNPC had alerted the government about the problems in the sector, Mohammed Shuaibu, the secretary of Abuja-Suleja IPMAN, who oversees Abuja, Kogi, Niger, and parts of Nasarawa and Kaduna, claimed to be uninformed of the meeting by the NMDPRA. He emphasized that certain filling stations in Abuja were now dispensing petrol for N185/litre as they now obtained the commodity above N168/litre from depots, adding that the price of petrol at N165/litre was unsustainable. Shuaibu added that if the government’s obligation to marketers over bridging claims is not paid, the IPMAN members’ strike would probably continue soon.
There have been concerns on the possibility of a potential hike in the price of PMS. This meeting between the federal government and IPMAN/MOMAN gives credence to the possibility of an increase in the prices of PMS if certain conditions as provided by IPMAN are not met. This would not affect the prices of AGO/MGO however.
Source: The Punch, Vantage News NG
