At N145 or 40 US cents, Nigeria’s pump price for petrol is the 7th cheapest in the world and the cheapest in West Africa, according to data published by globalpetrolprices.com.
All Nigeria’s neighbours sell petrol at more than double the Nigerian price, making the smuggling of Nigeria’s fuel to those countries very lucrative.
In Benin and Togo, fuel is sold at 96 cents, guaranteeing enough incentives for smugglers from Nigeria. In Chad, even though an oil producer like Nigeria, a litre costs 89 cents. In Niger, it is 97 cents and Cameroon, also an oil producer, it is $1.08 cents.
Further afield in West Africa, the pump price of petrol is 79 cents in both Liberia and Sierra Leone, $1.12cents in Burkina Faso, $1.04 in Guinea, $1.04 in Ivory Coast, $1.00 in Ghana, $1.33 in Cape Verde and $1.22 in Mali.
Nigeria’s petrol price 7th cheapest in the world
All the Gulf nations also sell their petrol much dearer than Nigeria, which, ridiculously imports its own. Qatar’s pump price as at 8 July was $0.48 cents, Bahrain $0.53, Saudi Arabia $0.56, UAE $0.59.
Nigeria is selling the usually imported petrol at huge subsidy and some of it is obviously smuggled across borders for huge profit, meaning that Nigerian treasury is subsidising consumption in those other countries.
In 2016 total subsidy was around N28.6bn. In 2017, it was N219bn and N345.5bn by mid-2018.
SOURCE: pmnewsnigeria.com