Aviation fuel selling at N550/litre not N700 – Oil marketers

The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has said it is not true that Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), also known as aviation fuel, is being sold at N700 per litre in some parts of the country.

Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Mr Clement Isong, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos, saying the product was not sold beyond N550 per litre anywhere.

The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) had threatened to go on strike on May 9, claiming that the cost of aviation fuel had risen to about N700 per litre from N190 per litre.

The strike was, however, called off after appeals by the Federal Government and other stakeholders.

Isong said, “I am not aware that aviation fuel is sold currently anywhere at N700 per litre. There has been an intervention by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd., which is now bringing in the ATK.

“It gets into tank, all costs together, at about N500 per litre. If we use Ikeja (Murtala Mohammed Airport, local as a bench mark, it is sold there by marketers between N540 and N550 per litre.

“Nobody with common sense will go and bring in the ATK now that the NNPC is bringing in product and selling it cheap.

“The NNPC is bringing in the product because it is swapping it with crude and when it swaps it with crude it uses the Central Bank of Nigeria’s exchange rate of N419 to a dollar.

“Meanwhile the product is deregulated. So no normal person can go and get it at that exchange rate. You cannot use N589 (black market rate) to a dollar to bring in the product and sell at N550 per litre.”