Against the grain of public perception that
once prices of products go up, they never
come down, the pump price of premium
motor spirit, PMS, popularly known as
petrol, has not only crashed in some petrol
filling stations, it has gone below the official
amount fixed.
In some of the stations, petrol now goes for
N95 per litre instead of the office price of
N97 fixed by the Petroleum Products Pricing
Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, in January
2012.
The price had been raised from N67 to
N140 on January, 2012, a move which took
Nigerians unawares, sparking widespread
outrage.
When government would not bow to
demands from labour and civil society
organisations, there was a mass action
described by some as the Nigerian Spring
after the revolt going on at the time in some
Arab nations.
The "Nigerian Spring" grounded business
and government activities around the
country for about two weeks before
government reluctantly reduced the pump
price from N140 to the current N97.
Although some economists say the price
could drop further even to N50, the
government had been saying it still needed
to rise to encourage private investors whose
investment in the building of refineries would
bring about the desired reduction.
But THISDAY's investigation show that
some petrol stations such as Ismah
Investment Ltd. in Kwali and Planet in Bako
town close to Gwagwalada on the outskirts
of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, have
reduced their pump price by N2 to N95 per
litre.
According to an official of Planet Petroleum
who said he was running the business
jointly with his brother but preferred not to
be named, they fixed that price based on
what they bought from marketers in Lagos
and Port Harcourt.
He said they first sold for N96 when they
procured the product at a slightly higher
rate. However, when the depot price
dropped, they had to cut theirs to N95 for
which it had been selling for the past two
months, he told THISDAY.
"Here we check the prevailing market prices
to fix our own," he said. "Even if it moves
down by just N1, we will adjust our price
accordingly."
He noted that even the Petroleum Products
Marketing Company, PPMC, the marketing
arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Company, NNPC, still sold for N97. The
marketer however said DPK or kerosene
was not affected by the price slash because
it didn't make economic sense after buying a
litre for N120 in Warri and spending N7 on
transportation.
At Ismah filling station, an official, Jubril
Iliyasu,said their decision to sell a litre of
PMS at N95 was informed by a desire not to
exploit the buyers.

First passerby

Chibabi: First passerby

you posted this just to be the first passerby.
it's a pity

Dats good development, but d metre i dey fear hope they no touch am.

....or they got their producj from pipeline vandals or bunkery.