On Monday, 20th June 2022, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) was revealed to have issued a directive to its members to not sell Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), commonly known as fuel or petrol, for no less than 180 Naira. In a media briefing, the Lagos Zonal Chairman, Akin Akinrinade stated the reason several of their members have shut down their stations was not because of a purported report that IPMAN was on strike, but rather due to the hostile operating environment for their business. This he said was caused among other things by the increased landing price for PMS, the heightened price of diesel that is used in the daily running of their stations, and also the increased cost of freight in the transport of their products.
While dissociating the situation from the removal of subsidy or the deregulation of the petroleum sectors, he nevertheless stated that it was no longer feasible to sell petrol at the government-capped price of 165 Naira, given that the landing cost of petrol currently stands at 175 Naira to 178 Naira per litre. “Our members can no longer sell at N165. In fact, there is no reasonable businessman in this business that can sell below N180 per litre,” he said.
“For you to load a litre of petrol you will pay N162 per litre. You will have to add the cost of transportation which is between N6 to N8 per litre depending on the distance within Lagos. If it’s outside Lagos, it’s much more than that. So, if you add N8 to N162, you already have N170 and this product is regulated by the government. The government wants us to sell at N165. We have not added the charges at the depots and the running cost at our stations.”
He also said, “You know what diesel sells for now, and you know how epileptic power supply is. We run on generators using diesel at N800 per litre. There is no station in Lagos or anywhere that uses less than 50 litres per day.”
In light of the above, it can be confirmed that the fuel queues have started to return to several places in Lagos. Ibadan had slowly seen the fuel queues return from the last week. As far south as Warri, in the morning of Tuesday it can be reported that several stations were shut and refusing to sell due to the pricing of the product and in the stations that were opened most sold at around N175 to N185 naira per litre. This current situation is also not expected to be gone soon with the current global energy crisis and the low crude oil production in Nigeria.
Utibe Emmanuel
