- Fuel supply hitch worsens …Marketers grumble over N145
- NNPC: 55 depots nationwide stocked with petroleum products
The ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol at private depots in Apapa, Lagos on Thursday hit N139 per litre as the product’s supply hitch worsened. The number of depots without petrol, a market survey obtained by New Telegraph yesterday showed, has increased from 20 to 22 with Folawiyo and Fatgbems joining the league.
The number of stations with product has reduced to 12, checks by New Telegraph showed, as the supply hitch bites harder. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is the major supplier of petrol to the depots, insisted yesterday that 55 depots with 23 in Lagos are stock with white products, noting that the depots must sell at the official exdepot price of N133.28 per litre.
The white product is a generic name for petrol, diesel and kerosene. New Telegraph’s report is based only on petrol. Despite the NNPC’s order on ex-depot price, New Telegraph reported yesterday that the depots sold the product for as high as N136.5 per litre on Wednesday.
The ex-depot price yesterday hit N139 per litre as no sale was recorded at two more depots – Folawiyo and Fatgbems. Nipco, the market survey showed, sold the product at N135 per litre ex-depot price, being the least price yesterday.
At Obat, the product was sold at N136.5 per litre while it sold at N137 per litre at Aiteo. Index and Bovas that adjusted their prices previously fixed at N135 per litre on Wednesday to N138 per litre on Thursday. The same scenario played out at MRS with the product sold at N138.5 per litre ex-depot price.
The product’s price hit the ceiling at depots like DJones/ Aipec; AA Rano and First Royal where a litre of petrol was sold at N139 per litre ex-depot price. The same scenario was also recorded at Wesbab and Emmadeb depot where a litre of petrol was sold at N139 per litre.
The number of depots with no petrol sale has swollen from 20 earlier reported yesterday to 22, the market survey showed.
Of the depots in Dockyard Road, Coconut area, Beachland area, Kirikiri area, and Satellite Town area, only Nipco, MRS, Sahara, Swift, Bovas, AA Rano, Aipec, Emmadeb, First Royal, and Wesbab had the product yesterday. Depots like A-Z, Hensmor, African Terminal, Acquatine, Ascon, Eterna Oil, Gulf Treasure, Ibakem, Ibeto and T-Time have run dry of petrol. Others with no products are Rahamaniya, Obat, DJones, Tecno, Index, Mao, Stallonire, Chi-Pet, and Meno. Product marketers at filling stations who are now compelled to buy at higher ex-depot price are now grumbling.
The N139 ex-depot price, to them, has rendered the N145 per litre regulated pump price unprofitable.
“The N145 per litre is profitable only when the exdepot price is N133.28 per litre. Now, that the depots have hiked the price to N139 per litre, about N5.62 is lost by filling stations on each litre and what it means is that we will be losing at least N185,460 on every truck of 33,000 litres,” an independent marketer told this newspaper.
“One of two things will happen; either the price is adjusted officially or the pump is adjusted unofficially,” one of the marketers told New Telegraph. Meanwhile, NNPC has advised motorists and other petroleum products consumers not to engage in panic buying, saying there is enough petroleum products stock in 55 depots across the country.
Listing the depots that have adequate petroleum products stock, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in a release yesterday in Abuja, stated that 23 depots in Lagos, seven in Port Harcourt,11 in Warri, six in Calabar and eight in Kaduna were fully stocked with white products.
Ughamadu who insisted that the country was wet with product, however, explained that two vessels of 50 million litres of PMS, otherwise called petrol, would arrive the shores of Nigeria every day from today.
NNPC assured Nigerians of an eventful Easter period just as the just ended Yuletide, even as it cautioned depot owners or terminal operators not to sell petrol above the official ex-depot price of N133.28k per litre. The corporation also advised petroleum products marketers not to sell the product above N145 per litre.
It said the subsisting ex-depot petrol price of N133.28k per litre was consistent with the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency’s (PPPRA) template and should be adhered to.
He advised Nigerians to remain vigilant and volunteer information to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the industry regulator, or to any law enforcement agency around them, on any station, which sells petrol beyond N145 per litre.
SOURCE: newtelegraphng.com