Petrol Landing Cost Now N264.65/litre
The landing cost of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) petrol is now N264.65 per litre, The Nation learnt yesterday.
According to a source in the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), there exists a difference between the agency’s cost and that of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
A subsidiary of the corporation, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company is the sole importer of the product.
The NNPC, said the source, has a higher landing cost than that of the PPPRA.
Although the agency had last year announced the deregulation of the product, the Federal Government had a recourse to subsidising it when the landing cost became unbearable for the end users.
The NNPC that termed it under recovery regime has left the pump price at a band between N162 and N165 per litre.
From the PPPRA landing cost of N264.65 per litre there exists subsidy or an under recovery of N102.65 per litre.
Asked to state the current landing cost of the PMS, the insider source, said he could not readily get the figure. He told The Nation that “the PPPRA has a landing cost of N264.65 per litre”.
As our Abuja correspondent pressed him to disclose the cost of subsidy, he said: ”I cannot give you that figure because there is a difference between NNPC subsidy figure and ours (PPPRA). NNPC is the only importer and its own is always higher.”
Asked in a telephone interview to state the landing cost, the NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Garba Deen Muhammad, said he was driving and could not hear the conversation clearly.
He promised to return the call, but he did not get back to our correspondent at press time. Besides, he did not reply the text message that was sent to ask him the landing cost and whether there is any difference between NNPC landing cost and that of the PPPRA.
The agency had on Monday issued a statement that the average daily supply of petrol in August 2021 was 55.99 million litres.
Going by this rate, it implies that Nigeria is consuming about N14,555,750,000 petrol while the Federal Government is spending about N5,747,373,500 on subsidy daily.
Meanwhile, the Brent Crude yesterday hit $83 per barrel following the refusal of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ramp up production more rapidly against a backdrop of concern about tight energy supply globally.
Reuters described the price as a multi-year high.
The market, according to the report, later unwound those gains due to an American Petroleum Institute (API) report showing rising crude inventories in the United States and, analysts said, technical indicators suggesting oil has rallied too fast.
On Monday, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, chose to stay with a plan to increase output gradually and not boost it further as the U.S. and other consumer nations have been urging.
Brent crude rose as high as $83.47, the highest since October 2018, and at 1115 GMT was down 40 cents, or 0.5percent, at $82.16. U.S. crude, WTI, climbed to $79.78, the highest since November 2014, and was later down 35 cents at $78.58.
