Marketers Give Conditions For Petrol Price Crash as NNPC Releases New List in Abuja, Lagos
- Petroleum product marketers have asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) to restore Nigeria’s 21 depots nationwide
- The marketers said that the repairs of the depots are essential as Nigeria is now relatively self-sufficient in petroleum product refining
- The marketers said repairing the depots would be cost-effective for the NNPC and would also crash petroleum product prices nationwide
Legit.ng’s Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment and the economy for over a decade.
Oil marketers have expressed hope about renovating Nigeria’s 21 depots owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) as the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries begin operations.
Despite NNPC’s promise of revamping the depots, dealers in the petroleum industry said it is critical to expedite the repair of the facilities to boost the gains of the refineries.
Source: UGC
Marketers say revamping depots would crash prices
The marketers asked the state oil company to take steps to restore the dormant fuel depots nationwide.
NNPC currently spends a lot of money to pay private depot owners to handle its products.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) said the commencement of the two refineries is enough to restore the depots and reduce petrol prices.
They noted that pipelines supplying petroleum products to the depots have either been vandalised or old due to years of neglect, leading to NNPC using private depots to store petroleum products.
The national oil firm installed pipelines nationwide, reaching 5.120km in length, to boost crude oil supply to the refineries and product evacuation.
The infrastructure was built to distribute petroleum products via pipelines to depots, easing their movement to retail outlets.
The complete list of NNPC depots nationwide
However, following the decline in domestic refining capacity and the focus on fuel imports, the NNPC abandoned facility maintenance and relied more on private depots.
Punch reports that depots are idle in the Aba, Benin, Enugu, Gusau, Gombe, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Kano, Makurdi, Maiduguri, Minna, Ore, Yola, Warri, Port Harcourt, Ejigbo, Mosimi, Kaduna, Calabar, and Suleja depots.
According to NNPC’s 2023 financials, the company spent a considerable sum on pipeline maintenance and costs of private depot owners.
The report said N234.65 billion was spent maintaining oil, pipeline, and storage depots between 2022 and 2023. It also spent N44.274 billion paying private depot owners for handling petroleum products.
IPMAN’s national publicity secretary, Chinedu Ukadike, said revamping depots is key to reducing hazards and fuel costs.
He stated that pumping products from the pipeline would be cost-effective for the NNPC and reduce road mishaps.
Ukadike revealed that the NNPC built the depots to receive products from the refineries, saying the company must ensure it restores them.
In 2024, the NNPC said it had commenced a comprehensive rehabilitation of the pipelines, noting that the preliminary stage of the process was ongoing.
NNPC releases new petrol prices
The development follows the NNPC's release of new petrol prices in Lagos and Abuja.
In Lagos and Abuja, retail filling stations owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) have increased the pump price of petrol from N965 to N990.
The national oil company also hiked their prices in Lagos from N925 to N960 per litre.
Dangote speaks on new petrol price
Legit.ng earlier reported that the Dangote Refinery has blamed the recent petrol price increases on the global rise of crude oil costs.
The company disclosed that the adjustment in ex-depot prices is directly related to the increase in global crude oil prices.
The price increase in crude sparked a global hike in gasoline costs, affecting countries like Nigeria.
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Source: Legit.ng
