Marketers blame drop in diesel price to competition

Marketers have attributed recent drop in pump price of Auto Gas Oil (AGO) otherwise called diesel to deregulation of the product and competition among the players.

They claimed that each marketer imports diesel from different sources and competition among the marketers was responsible for the drop in pump price of the product.

When asked to react to claims by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that it was solely responsible for the drop in price of the commodity,  one of them said “NNPC is also a marketer and a major player in diesel importation and distribution. Because it pushes huge volume, it surely can influence product pricing by selling below cost price.

“That is why we recommend that the sector should be fully deregulated and allow NNPC and other marketers to operate on level playing field.

“The operating environment is not level at all. Do you know that at a time when a dollar was selling close to N500/$, the NNPC was subsidising premium motor spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol. No other marketer can do that.”

Recently, the NNPC announced it has crashed the pump price of diesel from as high as N250 per litre to between N155-N160 per liter at NNPC Retail stations across the country.

This led other marketers to drop the pump price of diesel to as low as between N160- N170 per litre as at Sunday.

Investigation by the Nigerian Tribune revealed that major oil marketers including Oando, Forte, MRS, NIPCO and others sell between N160-N170 per liter in Lagos and its environs.

Meanwhile, a national survey by Oil and Gas Forum, NNPC’s weekly TV programme, indicated that in the last few weeks, the price of diesel has fallen steadily from between N175 and N200 per litre as at June 18, 2017, to as low as between N155 and N160 per litre in some stations across the country as at last week.

The study showed that NNPC Mega Stations and its affiliates across the country sold the product for N160 per litre while many major and independent marketers in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Onitsha, Enugu, Makurdi and most major cities were selling between N160 and N165 per litre. In Port Harcourt the average price is as low as N150 per litre.

The Manager of a fuel retail station in Abuja, Ibrahim Isah, said the station had to reduce the selling price to N165 per litre in line with the prevailing market situation in order to sustain the turnover of the business.

An independent marketer in Makurdi, Innocent Abbah, said the going ex-depot price of diesel from tarmac or local private depots is N155 per litre.

However, the situation is slightly different in Asaba and Warri in Delta State and Uyo in Akwa Ibom state where most independent fuel stations as well as major marketers sold the product for N180 per litre.