FG slashes petrol price to N87
The federal government has reduced the pump price of petrol to N87 per litre, following fall in crude oil prices.
The reduction, which represents a N10 slash, will take effect from Sunday night.
Briefing the media on Sunday, Dieziani Alison-Madueke, the minister of petroleum resources, shed light on the reason for the decision.
She said: “As you may be aware, there has been a lot of volatility in price of petroleum product particularly crude oil over the last few months , invariably this has meant that the price of the product in Nigeria has also been greatly impacted.
“It is as a result of this under the approval and directive of Mr. President and in line with Section 6 Clause 1 of the Petroleum Act, that it is my responsibility as the minister of petroleum to announce that there will be a reduction in the pump price of petroleum (premium motor spirit) by N10. Therefore the reduction will be from N97 per liter to N87 per liter effective as of mid-night Sunday the 18th of January 2015.
“In line with this I have directed the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency and the Directorate of Petroleum Resources to ensure there is strict adherence to this new pricing regime as soon as it takes effect from midnight Sunday 18th of January 2015.
“I do hope the entire country will benefit immensely from this reduction in the pump price of petroleum.”
She said the government has been “watching very carefully for the last two weeks” to ensure that the volatility did not destabilise this particular reduction in price.
“We think it is safe to implement it at this time,” she said.
Crude oil price is now selling for less than $50 after selling consistently above $100 for years, during which Nigeria spent trillions to subsidise pump prices.
As it stands, subsidy no longer exist on petrol.
The government is missing a great opportunity to just deregulate petroleum pricing once and for all. There is no need for government to be involved in product pricing.This is a great opportunity to finally bury the idea of government subsidizing petroleum products.
This is a good opportunity for the Goverment to hands off from the control of the prices of Refined Petroleum products totally & leave the mechanism in the hands of market forces, now that the prices of crude oil is down considerably internationally. In any case the subsidy is not getting to the masses at the pump prices! Also, it appears there is a built-in monopoly for some of the products like AGO for example, which ordinarily should cost less than Petrol, being a middle distillate!