BREAKING: Finally, Subsidy Removed As NNPC Sells Petrol N537/Litre In Abuja
* N488 in Lagos, N511 in Port Harcourt
BY NSE ANTHONY-UKO, Abuja
Nigeria has finally removed subsidy on premium motor spirit (PMS) popularly known as Petrol as the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited Wednesday morning officially changed its pump price to N537 per litre in Abuja.
LEADERSHIP checks also showed similar trend in Lagos State where NNPCL now retail fuel at N488 per litre at its station on
Old Ota Road, Abule-Egba, Lagos while the NNPC Mega Station, Lagos Bus Stop, at Port Harcourt on Wednesday sells for N511 per litre.
In Plateau State, Pump price is now #537/ litre at NNPC stations.
This change by the national oil company is providing clarity around prices after the removal of the controversial fuel subsidy which cost almost $10 billion annually.
NNPC is the sole supplier of petrol in Nigeria today and it is now expected that other marketers will take a queue from the NNPC prices and adjust their own pump price this morning.
Analysts say since NNPC has effected different pump prices for different cities, this may mean that not only has subsidy gone but also that the wasteful price equalization mechanism which ensured petrol had the same official price all over Nigeria was also gone.
It is unclear what FX exchange rate NNPC has used to arrive at its pump price but it could be around N600/$.
President Bola Tinubu who resumed at Aso Rock on Tuesday afternoon held a long meeting with the CGEO of NNPC and CBN governor Godwin Emefiele on the vexed matters of fuel subsidy and the multiple foreign exchange rates.
This was after Tinubu had announced in his inauguration speech that subsidy was gone and that the CBN had been mandated to abrogate the multiple exchange rates regime.
