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PETROLEUM Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) Executive Secretary, Mr Oluwole Oluleye, says as a result of high cost of crude, pump price of petrol 'should be between N71 and N75 per litre," according to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported yesterday.
ABUJA - PETROLEUM Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) Executive Secretary, Mr Oluwole Oluleye, says as a result of high cost of crude, pump price of petrol 'should be between N71 and N75 per litre," according to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported yesterday.
He made the declaration at an interactive session with stakeholders and newsmen in Kaduna. 'A metric tonne of petrol is $613 as of today, higher than $293 when the deregulation commenced in October 2003," he said.
However, Mr Wole Adamolekun, General Manager (Corporate Services) of PPPRA in a reaction said: 'We did not discuss anything like fuel price increase. Of course, the price of crude is going up in the international market, but nobody is contemplating any fuel price increase. All we wanted was for the journalists invited to the workshop in Kaduna to understand the way deregulation works."
NAN quoted Mr Oluleye as saying "landing cost is now N65:26k per litre since the beginning of this month, while it was only N33 in October 2003."
He said the high cost of crude was impacting negatively on the pump price leading to non-recovery of cost by the marketers. 'There must be recovery of cost at the pump in the interest of all," he said.
Oluleye said a slight increase was far better than shortage and chaos at the petrol stations. He said a solution to the low cost of petrol must be proffered since nobody would want the nation to go back to shortage and chaos at the filling stations. He said budgetary provision for fuel subsidy would go a long way to settle the problem of pump price increases.
Cost of crude oil has gone up consistently in the last seven months with a barrel selling at between $63 and $67, the highest ever, saying inappropriate pricing and price volatility remained the challenges of the deregulation.
He said establishment of refineries would assist in stabilising the price volatility, but added that, that could only come on board when there was appropriate pricing.
He praised the media for their role in educating Nigerians on the merits of the deregulation policy since inception. Oluleye appealed to Nigerians to support the agency to arrive at a reasonable and appropriate pump price of petrol.
Pump price of petrol hovers between N50 and N57 per litre in Abuja. Deregulation came into effect in October 2003 after a year campaign.