Why kerosene is sold for over N200 per litre —NUPENG chief

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) says the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has fixed N150 per litre as the official depot price of kerosene.

Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, the South-West Chairman of the union, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday.

According to him, the price will encourage more importation of the product by the marketers.

He said that most of the filling stations selling kerosene between N200 and N220 as the pump price was as a result of additional cost of transportation of the product and some other levies paid by marketers.

The chairman said that at present, NNPC was the only importer of kerosene and was using private depots to sell the product.

“The NNPC has fixed N150 per litre as the new depot price of kerosene and directed all its depots and private depot to comply with the directive.

“This did not include the transportation of the product or several levies and bank interests paid by marketers.

“Consequently, marketers will now add all these expenses to the depot price to arrive at N190, N200 or N220 depending on their locations.

“The advantage of this is that it would open door for more marketers to commence importation of kerosene just like petrol,’’ he said.

Korodo, however, commended Federal Government for its transparent policy in the oil and gas sector.

He urged NNPC to commence loading of its products from depots nationwide, adding that the System 2B oil pipelines were saved from being vandalised.