The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has threatened to shut down their filling stations nationwide over price control pressure by the federal government.
The spokesperson of IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, made this known in a recent interview with DAILY POST.
Recall that the minister of petroleum resources (oil), Heineken Olokpobiri, had called on the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority to clamp down on petroleum product marketers exploiting fuel consumers.
Earlier, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission had ordered and also expressed similar concerns on Sunday in a statement, warning fuel marketers against exploitative petrol prices.
The position by Nigerian government authorities comes as Brent and West Texas Intermediate fall to $72 and 69 per barrel, up from over $100 per barrel due to Iran, United States-Israel conflict easing.
However, fuel prices in Nigeria remain high despite the recent petrol price reduction by the Dangote refinery and filling station.
In Abuja, for instance, fuel is currently sold between N1210 and N1300 per liter in most filling stations.
But the recent drop in fuel price is not commensurate with the level of crude oil price decline.
This is why Nigerian government authorities had warned marketers against exploitative fuel pricing.
Reacting to this, Ukadike threatened that petroleum product marketers would shut down their retail outlets if the federal government tried to enforce price control despite the sector being deregulated in line with the Petroleum Industry Act.
He lamented that in the past weeks, marketers have lost between N10 and N15 billion due to fuel price reductions.
“Capital is hard to gather. There is no buffer area for marketers. Most of us are losing N10 to N15 billion due to the recent fuel price reduction. You buy at a particular price before you get to your station; the price had further reduced. We sell at a loss to be competitive. If you don’t sell at a competitive price, nobody will buy.
“Marketers will shut down if they try somehow to enforce price control. We are going to shut down our stations nationwide. You can’t be regulating a deregulated market. You can’t tell me how much to sell my product without trying to know how much I bought it.
“You can’t be blowing hot and cold at the same time. The Petroleum Industry Act must be followed to the letter. If they try to enforce price control, we will shut down,” Ukadike said.
