The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on Monday said current data showed the federal government is currently subsidizing the supply of every litre of petrol with about N21.22.
The Executive Secretary of the agency, Abdulkadir Saidu, said in a statement the price of a metric tonne of petrol at the international market averaged $582.80.
With that price, Mr Saidu said, this translates to an average landing cost of N146.85 per litre and expected open market price (EOMP) of ₦166.22 per litre for imports by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) only.
Due to the controversy over petrol pricing and subsidy, the NNPC has for over a year been the only importer of petrol in Nigeria.
The government approved retail ceiling price of petrol in Nigeria is N145 per litre.
With expected open market price (EOMP) at ₦166.22, the level of subsidy per litre of petrol by government translates to about N21.22.
When the present administration came to office in 2015, it adjusted the retail price of petrol from N87 to N145 per litre after promising to remove subsidy from the pricing template of the PPPRA.
However, years after that policy decision, subsidy has since been reinstated, albeit in a different name called under-recovery, but recorded as part of the operational cost of the NNPC.
Regardless, the Executive Secretary said due to the cost of financing component built into other marketers’ imports, landing cost and EOMP of petrol averaged ₦149.86 per litre and ₦169.23 per litre respectively.
The weekly data covering November 28, 2019 to December 4, 2019, showed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s official exchange rate averaged N306.97 to the dollar, while the parallel market rate was stable and averaged N360.00 per dollar during the period.
The data also showed that the reference freight rate from North-West Europe (UK-Coast – UKC) to West African Frontier (WAF) averaged $30.87 per metric tonne, the rate decreased when compared to previous week’s average of $35.45 per metric tonne.
The PPPRA said that total petrol receipt for the period (November 28 and December 4, 2019) was 473,602 million litres, automotive gas oil (AGO) 68,366 million; aviation turbine kerosene (ATK) 20,327 million litres.
The average daily discharges of petrol for the week stood at 67.66 million litres.
The data showed that the national truck-out volume of petrol for the week was 409.22 million litres, AGO 115.97 million litres, and aviation turbine kerosene (ATK) 27.05 million litres. Household kerosene (HHK) recorded zero.
The average daily truck-out volume of petrol for the week from various depots for supply to retail outlets was 58.46 million litres, while the average daily sufficiency for PMS and AGO during the week were 47.25 and 41.29 days respectively.
