NBS reports N107 per litre average fuel price nationwide

Average fuel price across the country has remained significantly higher than official pump price despite efforts by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to beef up supplies and enforce compliance to price regime.
According to the monthly research report of the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, entitled ‘Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol) Price Watch’, fuel prices averaged N107.4 per litre in July 2015 as against the stipulated pump price of N87.


File : Black Market rules the day as fuel scarcity bites harder in Port harcourt : Pix show: A black marketer, siphon fuel into a costumer’s vehicle yesterday along Station road in Port Harcourt. Photo: Nwankpa Chijioke
Last month, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, set up a task force to supervise and monitor the sale of petrol in some depots, against the reports that most petrol stations were selling fuel at prices significantly above the official price due to a hike in ex-depot prices.
DPR had summoned the stakeholders in the fuel distribution chain: Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC; Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority, PPPRA; Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN; Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, DAPPMA and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, and conveyed its displeasure at the illegal sale of petrol above the stipulated prices.
To curb sharp practices, the DPR had suspended direct sales of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, and Dual Purpose Kerosene, DPK, from the affected depot owners and major marketers.
Also, the regulatory agency had visited some of these facilities and sealed the depots of a few oil marketers, while most other culprits escaped the agency’s sledge hammer by the whiskers.
But despite these measures, marketers appear to be outsmarting the regulators had successfully been selling significantly above the official depot price going by the NBS survey report released, yesterday.
However, at the average N107.4 per litre, the national average appears to be on downward trend as the previous month’s record shows an average price of N112.1 per litre.
The figure for May was the highest this year at N118.36 per litre.
One of the surprises in the report is that Bayelsa State, a major oil state, maintains highest average price of fuel in the country at N153 per litre far above the average and far higher than the next highest price recorded which was N130 per litre in Taraba State. Bayelsa average was N155 in June, the highest that month.
Lagos has the lowest average price of N92 per litre along side Kano State.