The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has instructed all petroleum marketers to adjust retail prices for the premium motor spirit to a range between N488 and N555 per liter.
The instruction which hit marketers early Wednesday cited management approval of the upward review of NNPC PMS pump price table for Mega/Standard/Leased Stations.
The new table of retail prices for different geopolitical zones of the country which will be implemented by retail managers was instructed to take immediate effect beginning from May 31, 2023.
“Please implement meter change as approved effective today 31st May 2023. RMSs and Wayne is to attend to all locations as relates to their area of coverage in our network,” the instruction stated.
The new price schedule shows that petrol will sell highest in Maiduguri and Damaturu at N557 per liter and N550 per liter in the rest of the North East zone.
In Birnin Kebbi petrol will sell at N545 to lead prices in the North West zone. Average price in the North Central zone will be N537 per liter except in Ilorin where it will sell for N515 per liter.
The new price list shows that consumers in the South East will buy at an average of N520 per liter.
Apart from Uyo and Yenagoa where petrol will now sell at N515 per liter, the rest of the South South zone will get the product at N511 per liter.
Consumers in Lagos will buy the product at N488 per liter while the rest of the South West zone will get the product at N500 per liter.
The new development is seen in Lagos where NNPCL now retail fuel at N488 a litre at its station on Kingsway Ikoyi while the NNPC Mega Station, Lagos Bus Stop, at Port Harcourt on Wednesday sells for N511 per litre.
NNPC is the sole supplier of petrol in Nigeria today and it is now expected that other marketers will take a cue from the NNPC prices and adjust their own pump price accordingly.
Analysts say since NNPC has effected different pump prices for different cities, this may mean that not only has the subsidy gone but also that the wasteful price equalization mechanism which ensured petrol had the same official price all over Nigeria was also gone.
It is unclear what FX exchange rate NNPC has used to arrive at its pump price but it could be around N600/$.
President Bola Tinubu who resumed at Aso Rock on Tuesday afternoon held a long meeting with the CEO of NNPC and CBN governor Godwin Emefiele on the vexed matters of fuel subsidy and the multiple foreign exchange rates.
This was after Tinubu had announced in his inauguration speech that the subsidy was gone and that the CBN had been mandated to abrogate the multiple exchange rates regime.