Petrol price falls in seven months of 2018

The average price of Premium Motor Price (PMS) referred to as Petrol declined by 23.1 percent to N146.8 in July from N190.9 in January 2018 across the states in Nigeria, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) petrol price data released today.

BusinessDay analysis showed that the average price of petrol paid by consumers from January to July has been on a decline.

In January, the average price of petrol was N190.9, in February it was N172.5, in March it was N163.4, in April it was N151.4, in May it fell to N150.2, in June it was at N148.1 per litre and in July it was N146.8.

Industry players in the oil industry attribute the decline to the abundance of supply by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) who have doing the bulk of importation of petroleum products following oil marketers withdrawal over a control price for the product implemented by the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC).

Johnson Chukwu, CEO, Cowry Asset Management Limited said, “PPMC has significantly increased the volume of supply of petrol in the market beyond the demand that prices have been stabilized. They have really done so much to meet the demand of petrol and also ensure that their products are in different localities and even in the up countries locations where they are no coastal supplies.”

It recalled that in January this year, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it had deployed more of its depots and other throughput facilities to enforce the N133.28 per litre ex-depot price of petrol to marketers directly.

BUNMI BAILEY