Oil marketers, under the aegis of the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), have dismissed claims by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the prices of petrol and cooking gas have crashed.
They argued that the corporation might have reduced petrol price at its stations because of its relative ease of assessing foreign exchange.
The Executive Secretary of DAPPMA, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, told journalists at the week end that members of group are still selling petrol at N145 per litre, adding that he is not aware that the price of the product had crashed.
He said: “I’m not aware that the price of petrol has crashed. My people are still selling at N145 per litre. So if the NNPC has crashed its price, it doesn’t have the overhead that we have; it is not repaying loans to banks like we are paying and government is not owing the NNPC like it owes us.
“So we are operating in the same market but different conditions. Maybe they (NNPC) crashed the PMS price in their own petrol stations. Government owes marketers foreign exchange and interest on loans repayment for the past two years. Is it these same marketers that will now sell at a price that they cannot get the product?
“My own people in DAPPMA are selling at N145 per litre and that is the official market price. If the NNPC is selling at a lower price, you should know that the NNPC is not being owed by government; it is not going to banks to borrow money that it has to pay interest on when repaying. Also, the NNPC is not buying foreign exchange to import products.”