“We Never Pushed For Fuel Price Hike” – NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, denied it was pressing for a hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, also known as petrol.

According to the corporation, it is not empowered statutorily to tinker with the pricing template of petroleum products.

This was even as the NNPC stated that its downstream marketing subsidiary, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, earned N102.99 billion from the sales of 841.098 million litres of petroleum products in August 2016. 

The NNPC, in a statement by its  Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Garba Deen Muhammad, disclosed that there was no time its management met the President to push for a hike in the pump price of petrol to N150 per litre.

According to him, the price adjustment in its downstream facilities from N141 to N145 per litre is still within the price band of N135 and N145 per litre approved on May 11, 2016, by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, the statutory body in charge of petroleum products pricing.

“The NNPC assures marketers and motorists of its readiness to continue to play its statutory role of being the supplier of last resort and ensuring energy security for the nation,” he noted.

Muhammad further stated that the NNPC has over 1.6 billion litres of PMS in-country that would last 45 days consumption. 

Concerning the PPMC earnings from petroleum products sales,  a report obtained from the NNPC disclosed that the earnings from August represented a decline of 1.54 per cent from N104.605 billion revenue recorded by the PPMC from the sale of 893.33 million litres of petroleum products in July 2016.

According to the NNPC, N101.46 billion was earned from the sale of white products in August 2016, compared to N103.714 billion in July, while N1.53 billion revenue was recorded from the sale of special products, compared to N891.248 billion in July 2016.

Giving a breakdown of total white products sales, the NNPC stated that N85.706 billion was earned from the sale of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS; N10.038 billion was revenue from Automotive Gasoline Oil, AGO; while Dual Purpose Kerosene, DPK, fetched the PPMC N5.719 billion. 

On the part of special products, the NNPC noted that Low Pour Fuel Oil, LPFO, earnings stood at N1.248 billion while other special products earnings stood at N282.788 billion.