Retail marketers of petrol are currently raking in billions of naira as findings on Wednesday showed that they would make over N8.3billion profit in May (this month) due to the recent reduction in the ex-depot price of the product.
On May 6, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation announced a reduction in the ex-depot price of petrol from N113.28 per litre to N108 per litre.
Ex-depot price is the price at which depot owners sell petrol to retail outlets in Nigeria.
Marketers and consumers had expected the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to review the commodity’s pump price downward but this never happened.
The PPPRA had in March promised that it would be reviewing petrol price monthly based on global crude oil market fundamentals.
But it last reviewed petrol price on April 1, when it announced N123.5/litre and N125/litre as the lower and upper price bands for the commodity.
Data obtained from the PPPRA Abuja showed that since the N25.28 reduction in the ex-depot price of petrol and PPPRA’s silence on price review, marketers had been making larger profit margins.
An analysis of petrol pricing templates from January to April showed that the difference between the ex-depot price for collection and real ex-depot price was N7.65/litre.
According to the PPPRA, the ex-depot price for collection was a summation of the real ex-depot cost, bridging allowance, marine transportation allowance and administrative charge.