Nigerian Government To Spend N102.96bn On Petrol Subsidy in March

The cost of petrol subsidy for the month of March is estimated to be a whopping N102.96bn this is according to the recent pricing template for the commodity.

A publication by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, showed that the estimated petrol price range for retail outlets in March 2021 between N209.61/litre – N212.61/litre.

The downstream oil sector regulator also put the ex-depot price of petrol for the month at N206.42/litre and pegged the expected landing cost at N189.61/litre.

The regulatory agency on Thursday withdrew a template for petrol hours after it was published stating that the published guiding price did not translate to a hike in pump price despite reflecting market realities.

However, the ex-depot price approved by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for March was N148.6/litre and the corporation insisted that it had not and had no plan to increase petrol price this month.

Ex-depot price is the rate at which NNPC sells the commodity to depot owners, from where retailers make a purchase before dispensing at the pumps in filling stations.

“There is no increase in petrol price and our position is that the ex-depot price for petrol in March remains the same. So, no need to panic because there is no hike in price,” NNPC’s spokesperson, Kennie Obateru, stated.

NNPC is the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria for more than three years.

Nigeria consumes about 57.44 million litres of petrol daily, going by the most recent daily consumption figure released by the NNPC in its financial and operations report.