The price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, otherwise known as petrol, has surged by 6.8 percent, hitting N955 per litre, up from N890 per litre sold last week.
This fresh hike adds to the growing burden on Nigerians already grappling with rising living costs.
Findings across retail stations operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, as well as outlets owned by Independent Marketers in major cities like Lagos and Abuja, revealed that petrol was sold between N900 and N955 per litre.
According to Vanguard, the development is linked to ongoing supply and logistics issues affecting major petroleum suppliers, including NNPCL and the Dangote Refinery.
In a phone interview, the Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Mr. Chinedu Ukadike, attributed the situation to multiple bottlenecks in the distribution chain.
He stated: “Dangote increased their loading price to N845 per litre, as against N825 earlier sold, thereby resulting to a selling price of between N900 and N955, depending on the location.”
Ukadike further explained the limited availability of products for marketers outside the NNPCL retail network:
“We are aware that NNPCL supplies only to their retail outlets. Presently, the supply at Dangote is not sufficient for marketers. Most of our members, who paid for products to Dangote, are yet to load for two weeks now.”
He warned that the current scarcity is causing panic buying and pricing volatility:
“I will say that when people are scrambling for products, it results to hike in price. Some marketers, who paid to buy about three million litres from Dangote, were only given one million litres, as they complained of products being rationed, amongst marketers.”
As Nigeria continues to rely heavily on refined fuel imports and domestic refining capacity struggles to stabilise, the recent price hike underscores the vulnerability of the downstream petroleum sector and its ripple effects on transportation, inflation, and everyday living costs.
