A fresh increase in the retail pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol appears to be looming as the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has increased the ex-depot price of the product, to N155.17 per litre from N147.67 per litre.
According to a report by Channels Television, this new adjustment is contained in an internal memo from PPMC with reference number PPMC/C/MK/003, dated November 11, 2020, signed by PPMC’s Manager Marketing, Tijjani Ali and addressed to the Executive Director, Commercial of the agency.
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The ex-depot price is the price at which the product is sold by the PPMC to marketers at their various depots.
Consequently, marketers would be dispensing the product to motorists within a band of N165 and N173 per litre.
The memo read in part, “The EDC may please refer to the management directives in respect of the above subject (PPMC PMS prices for November 2020) as per the attached memo.
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“In line with the above, we propose PPMC November 2020 actual prices for PMS with effect from 13th November 2020, as follows: PPMC Ex-Coastal Price for PMS N130 per litre; PPMC Ex-Depot Price (With collection) N155.17 per litre.”
In its petrol price proposal for November, the PPMC put the landing cost of petrol at N128.89 per litre, up from N119.77 per litre in September/October. It also disclosed that the estimated minimum pump price of the product would increase to N161.36 per litre from N153.86 per litre.
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It can be recalled that in September, the Federal Government declared full deregulation of the downstream oil sector, paving the way for prices to be determined by market forces, especially international crude oil price. This led to the adjustment of the pump price of petrol to between N158 and N162 per litre to reflect the increase in global oil prices.
The retail price of petrol had also risen from N121.50-N123.50 per litre in June to N140.80-N143.80 per litre in July and then N148-N150 per litre in August.
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The deregulation policy of the Federal Government had been singled out as the reason behind the recent hike in the price of petrol.
According to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, deregulation will be difficult for Nigerians at the initial stage but will get better in the long run.
He added that since the announcement of full deregulation in March, the Federal Government has saved over N1 trillion.
