Subsidy Removal: NNPC Sells Petrol In Lagos For N488 And N537 In Abuja, PH N511

THE downstream sector of Nigeria’s petroleum industry has been thrown into confusion as a document puts the retail price of petrol at over N500 per litre.

NNPC limited Wednesday morning providing clarity around prices post the removal of the controversial subsidy which cost almost $10bn annually.

The new development is seen in Lagos where NNPCL now retail fuel at N488 a litre at its station on Kingsway Ikoyi while the NNPC Mega Station, Lagos Bus Stop, at Port Harcourt today sells for N511 per litre.

NNPC is the sole supplier of petrol in Nigeria today and it is now expected that other marketers will take a queue from the NNPC prices and adjust their own pump price this morning.

Analysts say since NNPC has effected different pump prices for different cities, this may mean that not only has subsidy gone but also that the wasteful price equalization mechanism which ensured petrol had the same official price all over Nigeria was also gone.

It is unclear what FX exchange rate NNPC has used to arrive at its pump price but it could be around N600/$.

President Bola Tinubu who resumed at Aso Rock on Tuesday afternoon held a long meeting with the CEO of NNPC and CBN governor Godwin Emefiele on the vexed matters of fuel subsidy and the multiple foreign exchange rates.

This was after Tinubu had announced in his inauguration speech that subsidy was gone and that the CBN had been mandated to abrogate the multiple exchange rates regime.