“National Embarrassment” – Okupe Knocks NNPCL, Marketers Over Petrol Pricing

Former presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe has appealed to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and oil marketers to be sensitive to Nigerians’ plight and avoid making President Bola Tinubu look bad.

In a statement titled ‘Dangote Refinery, NNPCL, Oil Marketers and the Voodoo of PMS Pricing’, Okupe criticized the opaqueness and lack of transparency in determining petrol prices, calling it a national embarrassment.

He argued that with the current Free On Board (FOB) price of petrol at Rotterdam being $0.541 per litre (N927.82 at N1,715 to $1), local refineries should sell below N842.83 per litre after saving freight costs.

Okupe challenged NNPCL, Dangote Refinery, and oil marketers to contradict his calculations.

His words: “The opaqueness and lack of transparency in determining the appropriate price of PMS is a national embarrassment.

“The insensitivity of these agencies to the suffering of Nigerians is inexplicable. The FOB (Free On Board) price of PMS at Rotterdam (as of Friday) is $0.541 per litre, which is N927.82 at N1,715 to $1.

“The landing cost of PMS in Lagos is N978 per liter. Local refineries save the cost of freight to and from European ports, which comes to approximately N85 per liter of PMS.

“From every empirical but accurate calculation, no local refinery should sell above the FOB price at Rotterdam less savings from freight charges of N85, which is N842.83,” he said.

The remarks from Okupe comes after NNPCL’s recent price adjustment, raising petrol prices in Abuja from N1,030 to N1,060 per litre and in Lagos from N998 to N1,025 per litre.