Oil marketers in the country have rescinded their decision to push
for an increment in petrol price from its current N145 to about N165 per
litre.
The Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria,
Mr. Obafemi Olawore, confirmed this in a telephone interview with SUNDAY
PUNCH.
He said, “The government has assured us that it will support us in
accessing foreign exchange at the interbank market rate. Major marketers
are not pressing for an increase in pump price.
“You can see that some filling stations are even selling below N145 per litre.”
Our correspondent learnt the Federal Government, in a bid to avert
further hike in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), had
promised marketers to help them access foreign exchange at N305 to a
dollar to enable them to import the product.
Following the free fall of the naira against the dollar in recent
times, marketers had raised the alarm that it was becoming increasingly
difficult for them to import and sell at the current pump price of N145
per litre.
Some marketers had in early August said Nigerians should prepare for
another increase in petrol prices due to the continued scarcity of
foreign exchange to finance the importation of the product.
The Federal Government had on Monday said there was no immediate plan to raise the price of petrol.
The disclosure came two days after a statement from the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation quoted former group managing directors of
the corporation as suggesting that due to the dollar scarcity and the
falling naira, it would be unrealistic to expect the petrol price to
remain the same.
The Federal Government, represented by the Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu and the GMD of the NNPC, Dr.
Maikainti Baru, among others, on Thursday met with marketers including
executives of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria and Depot and
Petroleum Products Marketers Association.
A source, who was at the meeting, told our correspondent in
confidence that Kachikwu assured the marketers that he would prevail on
banks to ensure that International Oil Companies sell dollars to them at
the rate of N305/dollar.
A top executive of one of the marketing companies, said on condition
of anonymity, “If we get it (dollar) at that rate, there will be no
problem. That’s what they promised us and that is what we are working
on.’
Asked if the marketers were comfortable with the exchange rate of
N305/dollar considering that N280/dollar was used when petrol price was
capped at N145 in May, from N86, he said, “We are not comfortable, but
we are managing. If they can prevail on the banks to give it to us at
N305, that will be fine.”
Following the adoption of a price band of N135-N145 per litre of
petrol four months ago, the minister had secured the support of IOCs to
ease major marketers’ forex challenge.
Mobil was to get support from ExxonMobil; Total, from Total Upstream;
Conoil, from Shell; Oando was expected to be supported by Agip, and MRS
and Forte Oil to be supported by the NNPC.
Our correspondent learnt that the support from the IOCs which was said to have later gone dormant, was now being reactivated.
The Head of Energy Research, Ecobank Capital, Mr. Dolapo Oni,
described the exchange rate of N350/dollar as manageably okay, saying
with that, the marketers could still make profit.
“The smaller marketers are still having issues because they can’t access all the forex they want,” he added.
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