With effect from December 14, 2020, Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, otherwise called petrol, would sell at N162.44 per litre as the Federal Government has reduced the litre pump price from N168.
Labour and Employment minister, Chris Ngige, announced the price slash to reporters at the end of a meeting with labour leaders which began at 9pm on Monday and ended at 1:30am on Tuesday.
Petrol now sells at N168, following the decision of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the Federal Government – owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to increase the petrol ex-depot price from N147.67 to N155.17 per litre last month.
Ex-depot price is the price at which the product is sold by the PPMC to marketers at the depots.
Ngige said a technical committee has been set up by the larger house to ensure price stability in the industry.
He estated that the committee, which will report back to the lager house on the 25 of January next year, will be appraising the market forces and every other thing that will make for stability in the industry.
The minister said: “Our discussion was fruitful and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is the major importer and marketers of petroleum product, and customers have agreed that there will be a slide down of the pump price of PMS and that the price cut will get us about N5 per litre and that the price cut will take effect from next Monday, a week today.”
He explained that the price reduction was possible because the NNPC agreed to cut costs like freight cost and demurrage.
This, he said, does not reverse the deregulation of petrol.
On the contentious electricity tariff, Ngige said both sides agreed to wait to allow the special committee constituted to examine the justification for a new cost-reflective tariff introduced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.
The committee was set up after the September 28 meeting between the federal government and the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC.
According to Ngige, the next meeting date will be January 25.
The Nation/TheCable
