The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has raised the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), generally known as fuel, at its retail stores.
Several reports indicated the product’s price was raised to N897 per litre from around N600 at an NNPC filling station in Lagos.
The increase comes amid a nationwide petrol shortage, which has hampered commercial activity.
In a statement issued on September 1, the national oil business attributed the shortages to its inability to sustain petrol supply due to a $6 billion debt owed to suppliers.
Media reports on Tuesday attributed the price adjustment to a directive of the federal government asking the NNPC to sell at N1,000.
Heineken Lokpobiri, minister for petroleum resources (oil), said the ministry never gave the national oil company such a directive.
Lokpobiri, in a statement signed by Nnemaka Okafor, his media aide, said reports of price directives were “ill-conceived to sow discord and confusion in the oil industry”.
The statement reads:
“The Federal Government is compelled to address the outright falsehoods currently being circulated on social media, which claim that the Minister of Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to inflate petroleum prices above the approved pump price.”
“We categorically condemn these claims as baseless, malicious, and a deliberate attempt to incite public discontent. We challenge anyone in possession of any evidence written documents, audio, or video recordings that support these fabrications to make it public.
“Such a claim is entirely devoid of truth and should be recognised as an intentional effort to mislead the public. It must be stressed that NNPCL operates as an independent entity under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, with a fully empowered Board of Directors.”
Lokpobiri stated that the ministry does not and will not meddle in NNPC’s internal choices, including price problems.
According to the minister, the stories that suggest a different perspective are inaccurate and demonstrate a basic ignorance of Nigeria’s petroleum sector’s deregulation.
On August 26, Lokpobiri stated that petrol smuggling persists in Nigeria because the NNPC sells below the landing cost.
Before this, on August 20, Umar Ajiya, the NNPC’s chief financial officer (CFO), stated that the firm was selling petrol at half the land cost.
Before the recent increase, the official pump price of petrol was roughly N600/litre, while the landing cost was around N1,200.