Petrol Sells For N200 on Black Market

The continuous scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol has given illegal hawkers of the commodity opportunity to resurface on various black markets in parts of Lagos and other cities, selling the product for N200 per litre in Lagos to desperate motorists, and about N150 in Abuja and other states.

The official pump prices remains N86 at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s filling stations and N86.5 at those belonging to independent marketers.

Even though NNPC announced it had secured the commitment of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria to end the scarcity, the marketers said they are yet to receive 180 million litres of petrol that NNPC claimed to have supplied as part of measures to ease the current scarcity.

Mr. Mike Osatuyi, the National Operation Controller, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria said in a telephone interview with one of punch correspondents on Monday that “the supply of petrol to members of the body had not improved”.

“The status quo remains. There is no fuel. Where are the cargos they brought and which depots are the product discharged into? Let them pump it out. Let us wait and see the fuel that they said they brought,” he said.