PENGASSAN wades into petrol price increment, targets erring outlets as price hits N650 per liter

The group traced the lingering crises in the petroleum industry to the prolonged scarcity of Premium motor spirit, PMS which they noticed to have grown worse in Abuja, Lagos and many parts of the country.

According to the group, all marketers selling PMS at very high prices should have their licenses revoked by the FG.

The crisis in the sector has been trailing for close to four months now as some marketers have heaped blames on the apex industry regulator, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCl for the scarcity.

As of November 2022, some petroleum marketers had revealed that despite the FG's assurances that there was enough supply of petroleum products to go around, there had been concerns about logistics and the supply of products.

The marketers also revealed that some new charges had been introduced in the downstream oil sector, which had given rise to an increase in the ex-depot price of petrol.

The marketers further predicted that these issues would extend the fuel queues into the new year, an occurrence that Nigerians are currently witnessing.

“Recently, there have been a lot of charges that marketers pay. There are some charges that the NNPC adds to the pump price, but recently we were told to be prepared to bear freight charges and others,” a major marketer, who pleaded to remain anonymous told The Punch.

The official added, “Also, pipeline charges that used to be 50 kobo before, are now N1 per litre. Now, these charges force depot owners to increase their ex-depot rates as against the one proposed by the NNPC.”

On the solution to end the scarcity of PMS being witnessed across the country, PENGASSAN noted that it is currently following up with the NNPC as they were responsible for assigning the products to marketers.

The group also revealed that from available data, there were over 30 days of PMS sufficiency across the country, hence there was no basis for the current scarcity and hardship currently faced by Nigerians.