Information reaching us at Checkout Magazine has it that filling station owners are stockpiling products ahead of the announcement of a new pump price for petrol in August.
PUNCH reports that the price of the commodity might increase to about N150/litre as the committee saddled with the task of fixing petrol price had been meeting and would make the new price public soon.
An impending increase in the price of petrol comes on the heels of the rise in crude oil price in the international market, according to Marketers and officials of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency
“There is panic buying and it is because of the worry that prices will be reviewed either downwards or upwards.
But because of the marginal rise in crude oil prices, the calculation is that petrol price could go up,” the National President, Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, said.
He added, “That is the situation and this was why we requested that there should be a stakeholders’ engagement every month or quarterly so that we can be sure of what to expect.”
He said many marketers who had stockpiled products were ready to sell at the current rate regardless of any increase.
Gillis-Harry noted that the failure of the pricing regulator to involve marketers in the price fixing process was putting dealers in bad light.
He, however, stated that a lot of marketers had determined not to hike petrol cost immediately, particularly if there was an increase in the price of PMS in August.
