Greater Hardship as Diesel and Kerosene Prices Increases Nationwide

 

Fresh report reveal that the prices of Automated Gasoline Oil (AGO) or diesel and household Kerosene have skyrocketed across the country according to DailyTrust.

Diesel dealers told some correspondents that scarcity of the product may be imminent because marketers were now paying more to source the US dollar at the black market to import the product.

In Abuja, findings by a  reporter showed that a litre of diesel, which has already being deregulated, currently costs between N150 and N170 depending on the retail outlet.

A manager at one of the Total stations in Abuja city centre said the station had not received diesel for a week now despite being a top seller of the product in the FCT.

“It was N150 per litre but N169 the last time we sold it,” he said.

The price of kerosene also rose dramatically as A.Y.M Shaffa, which is renowned for selling the product, has hiked the price this week from N155 to N165 per litre.

The National Treasurer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Barrister Dibu Aderibigbe, blamed the hike on two factors.

“It has to do with foreign exchange and the international oil price. The refined product is getting higher since crude oil is going up.

Marketers have to look for forex by themselves and the cost of dollar is almost N370 now,” “As far as DPK is concerned, NNPC is not distributing DPK through any other marketer but their service outlet, if there is a hike NNPC is purely responsible for that,” he said.

In Lagos, the cost of diesel currently hovers between N165 and N180 per litre, which is a slight margin from what it sold some months ago.

Some independent marketers in Ikeja, Onipanu and Lagos Island areas clearly displayed N170 per litre for diesel on their billboards.

Similarly, the price of kerosene per litre in few of the stations, like NIPCO plc is pegged at N145 per litre.