Plan to Increase Fuel Pump Price and Panic Buying by Customers: NNPC Addresses Nigerians

The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has opened up on the recent increase in bridging allowance to transporters, saying that will not lead to an increase in the pump price of petrol.

The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) says the recent increase in bridging allowance to transporters from
N6.20 to N7.20 per litre will not lead to an increase in the pump price of petrol.

Henry Obih, chief operating officer (COO) in charge of downstream operations of the corporation, said this in Abuja on Wednesday.

He explained that the rise in the bridging cost was achieved after an adjustment was made in the “lightering expenses” from N4
to N3 per litre and the difference transferred to compensate for the cost of bridging within the same template.

The bridging allowance is the cost element built into the products pricing template to ensure a uniform price of petrol across the
country, while lightering expenses involve charges for moving products to depot area from mother vessels by light vessels due to the inability of the former to berth in shallow water depth.

Obih said; “The approved pump price of PMS remains unchanged at N145/ltr across all service stations in the country. There is no
such plan by government or any of its agencies to review the pump price of PMS to anything above N145 in d country.

“What has happened was a rebalancing of the margins allowed/approved for stakeholders within d build-up of d pump price for PMS. As at today, we have over 1.3bn ltrs of PMS in storage which represents over 36 days of inventory.

“That means even if we stop refining/importing,we’ll have more than enough PMs in storage. There’ll be no risk of short
supplies. We are working with sister agencies such as the DPR to ensure strict compliance to the N145/ltr pump price ceiling.”

“What happened, in simple language, is a rebalancing of the margins allowed and
approved for stakeholders.

“So, what the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) did was to take N1 from lightering expenses and add same to the bridging allowance. That is how we arrived at N7.20. Therefore, PMS remains at the ceiling of N145 per litre,” he said.

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