Marketers lament Rising Diesel price, may hit N1,500/litre, 75% filling stations closed
Oil marketers in the country have stated that about 75 per cent of filling stations across the country are currently out of business due to their inability to purchase diesel required to power their tankers and transport Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, to their various outlets.
THECONSCIENCENG gathered that the Marketers also stated that the cost of diesel would keep increasing and might hit N1,500/litre in the next two weeks if nothing drastic was done to curtail the current challenge faced by importers of the deregulated commodity.
Dealers under the aegis of the Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association told journalists in Abuja that this was also the reason why petrol scarcity had failed to abate in Abuja and neighbouring Nasarawa and Niger states, among others.
Speaking on behalf of the marketers, the National President, NOGASA, Bennett Korie, explained that the only solution to the current challenge was for the Federal Government to raise the pump price of petrol a little in order to reduce the huge foreign exchange used in PMS imports.
This, he said, would eventually free up some forex for diesel imports, a development that would impact positively on the rising cost of diesel, stressing that the product was currently sold at N850/litre.
He said, “If you go round now you will see that about 75 per cent of filling stations in Nigeria have gone out of business. There is no diesel to take fuel to their stations. All of them are going down.
“And it is not that the fuel is not there, but the cost of bringing it to the stations is too high. We know that the crisis between Ukraine and Russia has contributed badly, but the government has to do something fast, otherwise we are going to buy diesel in the next two weeks at N1000 to N1500/litre.”
Asked whether anything was being done to address the challenge, Korie replied, “As far as I am concerned nothing for now. The only way out, if you want to know, is that they (the government) should increase the price of fuel a little to reduce the money spent on PMS subsidy.
“I know Nigerians will not be happy to hear this, but this is the only solution. They should increase the price of fuel a little so that the savings will enable the Central Bank of Nigeria to have enough foreign exchange.
“You and I know that we import everything now in Nigeria. Diesel is an imported product and it is fully deregulated. So the importers are not getting dollars at the official CBN rate to import diesel. Everybody is going to the black market to get dollars to import their products and so you expect the price of diesel to be high.”
Korie states that if the government could bring down the rate at which it spends foreign exchange on PMS imports, this would will help other businessmen who import diesel to bring in products at low prices.
