The National Bureau of Statistics has released its PMS watch, which presents average monthly prices actually reportedly paid by households for PMS across the 36 States and Abuja.
According to the report for April 2016, the average national price for petrol in the country is about N162.82 per litre. No state recorded an average selling price that is equal to the former official rate of N87. According to the report, Imo State recorded the highest average price with about N203/litre for petrol. Ekiti and Edo States were next with N202 and N194 respectively.
The Federal Government last week increased the price of petrol to a band of between N135 and N145 essentially ditching fuel subsidy for price modulation. It is hoping that the move will allow marketers import fuel at market determined prices leading to an elimination of fuel queues and most importantly petrol subsidy.
However, with this report it is unlikely that the government can maintain this price band as it is not reflective of the supply dynamics across other states. With fuel selling for as high as N200 in some states, analysts believe fuel prices could rise to N300 per litre in states where the price disparity with the previous official rate was over 50 percent.
