By Eboagwu Austine N. Monday
The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the cost of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol should be more than N280 per litre.
Speaking in an interview with Channels Television, Kyari said petrol price ought to be more than N280 per litre which Automotive Gas Oil, also known as diesel, is currently being sold.
He said the federal government is still in talks with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) over the cost of petrol.
He said based on the ongoing engagements, there will be no fuel price increase in July.
Kyari said, “Today we are paying N162/litre (for petrol). I am sure many people buy AGO (diesel) in the market and it is selling at N280/litre in the market today.
“So (there is) nowhere in the world diesel sells more expensive than PMS. That means that the price of petrol anywhere in the world, assuming you are going to sell it at the market, you are going to sell it above that price you have seen.”
Kyari added that while the subsidy regime wasn’t sustainable, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed NNPC to do everything legally possible not to make petrol price out of reach of Nigerians, “especially at this moment”.
“What this means however is that we are taking out cash that could have been used for other things to pay under-recovery,” he added.
The NNPC boss said although petrol evacuation by NNPC in Nigeria was currently about 60 million litres daily, the corporation was sure that consumption was not up to that volume.
He said organised smuggling was the reason for the huge consumption volume, stressing that the low petrol price of N162/litre was also an incentive for this.
On what the landing cost of petrol could be as of Tuesday, Kyari said: “Today, from what I can remember, I checked the number two days ago; what would we sell if we are at the filling station today and recover our cost fully is around N256/litre,” he stated.
