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Fuel marketers have commenced increasing their petrol pump prices amid the supply shortfall facing private depots in Apapa, Lagos State.
Filling stations in Lagos and Ogun states increased the pump price of petrol to N170 per litre on Tuesday from N162 per litre, Punch reports.
Among the stations were Capital Oil and Gas, Fatgbems and Amo Oil, all along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Another station, Enyo Retail, adjusted its pump price to N165 per litre from N162.
Speaking on the increment, Mr Mike Osatuyi, the National Operation Controller, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, said that the members of the association were forced to increase the pump price because they bought the product at N160-N161 from depot owners.
On Thursday last week, it was reported that IPMAN members disrupted loading of petroleum products at private depots in Apapa on Wednesday as well as Ibadan, Ejigbo and Mosimi depots belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Their action was to protest their inability to get products due to a new payment method introduced by the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the NNPC.
Osatuyi said, “My members buying from DAPPMAN members are buying at N160-N161, and they will have to add their transportation costs to it. So, at what price do you want them to sell? Even that N170 is still very cheap.”
He said the PPMC had told marketers to register under the new payment method, called ‘PPMC Customer Express’, before they could buy products from it.
“Right now, PPMC has said that the era of ATP (Authority to Pay) has gone. It means that payment has to be made online. So, my members are now in the process of doing that, and without doing it, we cannot lift products,” he added.
Despite the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector, the NNPC has remained the sole importer of petrol into the country.
Reports say many private depots in Apapa, Lagos, from where many marketers get petroleum products for distribution to other states, were running dry of petrol due to supply shortage.
Reacting to the development, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr Kennie Obateru, said that there was no shortage of petrol supply from the NNPC.
He said, “We have 1.7 billion litres of product as at today, which will give us about 40 days’ sufficiency. Even some more vessels are on the programme.
“And we have not increased our ex-depot price; even though we know some of them (marketers) are sort of slowing down because they are expecting that we will react to the crude oil price increase. But for now, we haven’t done that.”
This post was written by Obiajulu Joel Nwolu.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.