Petrol Price to Rise as Landing Cost Hits N885 Per Litre

This informing is according to the latest data from the Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on Wednesday.

The association confirmed the rise in the landing cost in its daily energy bulletin released on Wednesday, arguing that price changes are inevitable in a deregulated market.

The new landing cost is N25 higher than the N860 per litre that end-user customers pay for Dangote petrol from MRS and other partners.

Similarly, the Dangote refinery’s ex-depot petrol price is N815 per litre, N70 lower than the new landing cost..

The landing cost fell from about N927 below Dangote’s ex-depot price, forcing the refinery to react with a price cut.

The development resulted in the loss of billions of Naira by marketers as they were made to sell petrol below their costs.

There are, however, indications that this may lead to increase in petrol prices in the coming weeks as a result of the disagreement between the Dangote refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited over the Naira-for-crude deal and the rise in the landing cost.

While announcing the suspension of the sale of the product in local currency last week, the Dangote Group said, “Dear valued customers, we wish to inform you that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has temporarily halted the sale of petroleum products in naira. This decision is necessary to avoid a mismatch between our sales proceeds and our crude oil purchase obligations, which are currently denominated in US dollars.

“To date, our sales of petroleum products in naira have exceeded the value of naira-denominated crude we have received. As a result, we must temporarily adjust our sales currency to align with our crude procurement currency.”

Immediately after the announcement, the cost of loading petrol at private depots in Lagos jumped to about N900/litre.

In a related development, seven vessels carrying imported PMS were expected to berth at seaports along the nation’s borders between March 17 and 23.

These vessels, carrying 115,000 metric tonnes, representing 154.22 million litres of PMS, brought in products through three seaports – Tincan port in Lagos, the Lekki Deep Seaport in Lagos, and the Calabar port – to improve fuel supply nationwide.