Petrol Price Rises for the First Time in Seven-month

• Petrol Price Rises for the First Time in Seven-month

After seven months of decline, average price of petrol rose for the first time in August, according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The report showed average price of petrol increased slightly by 0.1 percent from N146.80 per litre filed in July 2018 to N146.90 in August 2018.

CEO, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Johnson Chukwu, attributed the increase to possible bottlenecks associated with distribution in some states.

“Well what I think may have happened is that in some states, there must have been some distribution bottlenecks properly in the northern states as a result of the destruction of transport infrastructure by the insurgency in the north east region and we also know that there was armed theft in some northeast states like Zamfara and Sokoto.”

“The level of insurgency may have constrained the distribution of petrol products to those states and that may have affected their prices in those states. So I think it is more of destruction bottlenecks and not necessary because there was not enough petroleum products available in the country,” Chukwu added.

Petrol price has been on a decline since the beginning of the year before picking up slightly in August. In January, the price was N190.9 per litre and drop to N172.5 in February and N163.4 in March.

The price fell again in April to N151.4, May to N150.2, and in June to N148.1.

Consumers pay the most for petrol in Borno at N157 per litre in August, followed by N152.9 in Kebbi and N152.9 in Kwara.

However, consumers in Ekiti, Katsina and Bauchi paid the lowest price at N144.2, N144.1 and N143.89, respectively.