OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC on Sunday, blamed the increase in the price of household Kerosene in the country on the pressure of demand and supply.
The NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, explained that the price of the product had been deregulated.
“The point remains that the prices of kerosene are deregulated.
“It is not as controlled with reference to Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, that is why we see the prices moving up and down.
“The important thing is that the trend you are seeing there had to do with supply and demand. The more the demand, the higher the price locally,’’ he said
According to him, the NNPC is the sole importer of the product and had been augmenting it with the small quantity produced from the refineries.
“The Corporation is doing everything to ensure that we import more volumes of kerosene because, we believe that this is the energy source that the low-income earners in the country use,’’ he added
The news outlet, NAN, said some retail outlets in the outskirt of Abuja sell Kerosene ranged between N400 and N500 per litre, while most of filling stations along the Kubwa express road, Dutse, and Zuba hardly sell the product.
Most of the consumers buy the products from the roadside.
At Dutse market, the price was N400 per litre while within Kubwa it is sold between N450 and N500 per litre.
It would be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS in its National Household price watch in June said the average price per litre paid by consumers for Kerosene increased to N316.43 on June 2 from N315.91 in May.
The NBS said the price of kerosene increased by 0.17 percent month-on-month and 13.14 percent year-on-year in the period under review.
The report said states with the highest average price per litre of kerosene were Anambra at N381.25; Abia, Bayelsa, and Akwa Ibom N356.67 and Enugu N352.78.
