Fuel pricing: ‘National embarrassment’ – Okupe chides NNPCL, marketers

An erstwhile presidential spokesman, Doyin Okupe, has called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, and oil marketers not to make President Bola Tinubu look bad before Nigerians.

In a statement on Friday titled: ‘Dangote Refinery, NNPCL, Oil Marketers and the Voodoo of PMS Pricing’, Okupe urged all oil stakeholders to be sensitive to the plights of Nigerians

He said the emerging scenario in petrol pricing appears to aim at making the government, which is no longer involved in petroleum pricing, look bad and indirectly heap undeserved blame on President Tinubu.

“The opaqueness and lack of transparency in determining the appropriate price of PMS is a national embarrassment.

“The insensitivity of these agencies to the suffering of Nigerians is inexplicable. The FOB (Free On Board) price of PMS at Rotterdam (as of Friday) is $0.541 per litre, which is N927.82 at N1,715 to $1.

“The landing cost of PMS in Lagos is N978 per liter. Local refineries save the cost of freight to and from European ports, which comes to approximately N85 per liter of PMS.

“From every empirical but accurate calculation, no local refinery should sell above the FOB price at Rotterdam less savings from freight charges of N85, which is N842.83,” he said.

The former Director-General of Peter Obi 2023 Presidential Campaign Council, tasked NNPCL, Dangote Refinery, and oil marketers to contradict his position.

Recall that barely three weeks after raising the price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, NNPCL adjusted the pump prices of the commodity, upwardly.

The national oil firm raised the retail price of petrol in Abuja from N1,030 to N1,060 per litre.

In Lagos, NNPCL stations increased the unit price of the commodity from N998 to N1,025 per litre.