Nigerians have woken up to another hike in the price of fuel. On Wednesday October 9, the pump price of petrol rose to N1,030 per litre at various outlets of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) in Abuja.
The NNPC recently announced that it would no longer act as the middleman for Dangote petrol. This means the NNPC will no longer be the sole off-taker, and marketers can now negotiate prices directly with Dangote Refinery. Today’s petrol price increment appears to be the reason the NNPC decided to terminate its exclusive purchase agreement with Dangote Refinery.
According to a Premium Times report, NNPC Ltd outlets in the Central area of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, adjusted their pump price of petroleum to N1,030. “This is funny; I just noticed that the pump price has changed from N897 to N1, 030,” the newspaper quoted one Glory Okoye, a customer who bought fuel from the NNPC filling station.
At several other outlets in the Wuse, Lugbe area of the capital city, the pump price equally jumped to N1,030 as motorists and commuters grumbled amid the uncertainty.
In Akute, Ogun State, the NNPC outlets were shut against motorists who formed a long queue along the Akute-Alagbole Road.
Background
The NNPC had claimed in September that it was buying petrol from Dangote Refinery at N898.78 per litre and selling to marketers at N765.99 per litre, shouldering a subsidy of almost N133 per litre. However, the company said this arrangement is no longer sustainable.
The NNPC lifted about 103 million litres of petrol from Dangote Refinery between September 15 and 30. The refinery was able to load 2,207 of the 3,621 trucks sent to it within the period under review.
The vehicles carried just 102,973,025 litres of the planned 400,000,000 litres of petrol earmarked to be lifted from the refinery at 25 million litres per day. That translated to just 26 per cent performance, records, per Premium Times report.
