Business
NNPC, major marketers deny increase in fuel price
- Independent marketers justify pump price hike
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has dismissed reports of an upward review in ex-depot prices of petrol.
Major Oil Marketers of Nigeria (MOMAN) also said its members had not increased the pump price of petrol.
But the independent marketers said they could only get the product between N160 and N162 per litre at the depot instead of N148 per litre.
Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Dr Kennie Obateru, said there was no immediate plan to increase the pump price of fuel.
But some marketers in Lagos and Ogun states are said to have adjusted their pump price of petrol from N162 to N170 per litre as shortage of the product is being experienced by private depots in Apapa, Lagos.
Obateru, in an interview, said, “The NNPC has not increased its ex-depot price. I am certain that the NNPC is not likely to increase its ex-depot price in February.”
According to him, NNPC has a stock of petrol that can last for over 40 days. He allayed fears about scarcity of the product.
Obateru urged the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to clamp down on the marketers hoarding petrol.
“We have sufficiency for almost 40 days. If people are hoarding or increasing their prices, it is for the DPR to look into it,” he said.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) urged the Federal Government to return subsidy to petrol as landing cost soared to N180 per litre.
IPMAN’s National Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Maiganidi, told The Nation the government should either deregulate the product fully or subsidise it.
Maigandi was reacting to the latest fuel scarcity in Lagos.
Asked whether there was an upward review of the pump price, he said, “Most of the private depots are selling petrol for between N160 and N164 per litre instead of N148 per litre.”
The Major Oil Marketers of Nigeria (MOMAN) also denied that there was a hike in the pump price of petrol.
It wondered whether any fuel marketer was getting supply from any source other than the NNPC
MOMAN Chairman, Tunji Oyebanji, said none of his members had hiked fuel price, adding that all marketers currently source products from the NNPC.
He said since the Federal Government claimed it had deregulated the downstream oil sector, marketers were at liberty to sell at any price reflecting their operational cost.
He said if the unilateral fuel price hike had come from some of his members, the government would have wielded the big stick.
Oyebanji said the Federal Government desired to deregulate the downstream oil sector, adding that if that had taken place, the price would have gone up astronomically.
He said the government was in consultation with labour to avoid a sharp rise in petroleum products prices.
Consumers resorted to panic buying of petrol products across some states, resulting in fuel queues along some routes in the Lagos metropolis.
Some filling stations have shut their outlets altogether.
In Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, the queues that returned to petrol stations at the weekend subsided on Tuesday.
At the First Blessing filling station along Satellite Campus Road, Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, petrol was sold at N175 per litre, while at NNPC retail outlet along the popular Bank Road in the city, it was sold at N65 per litre.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the product was still being sold at between N162 to N162.50 per litre, which is still within the N160 and N165 band set by the government when crude traded just above $43 per barrel four months ago.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March traded above $60 yesterday, while the Brent April contract on the Intercontinental Exchange settled at $63. Both crude benchmarks added over 12 per cent in value since the beginning of February.
Maigandi said the existence of different prices was an indication of a shortfall, which the marketers are asking the government to subsidise.
Asked why the marketers are not patronising the NNPC depots where the price is still official, he said, “You cannot get the product from NNPC depots. NNPC depots will ask you to queue up at the depot.”
Aviation
Safety: NCAA to audit all domestic airlines, says Aviation minister
Safety: NCAA to audit all domestic airlines, says Aviation minister
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has said the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will carry out a comprehensive audit on all local airlines over safety concerns.
This is coming after a runway incursion incident in which Dana Air’s plane carrying 83 passengers with six crew members skidded the runway at the Lagos airport leading to diversion of flights
The operations of Dana Air were immediately suspended and NCAA directed to commence a comprehensive audit on the airline.
Keyamo spoke on the general audit of all domestic airlines on Thursday when he appeared on Channels TV Politics Today programme.
He said beyond the suspension of Dana Airlines and the ongoing audit of the airline, all other carriers in the country would be audited to guarantee the safety of passengers and the health of the civil aviation industry.
The directive to suspend the operations of the Dana Air was contained in a letter issued and endorsed by the NCAA Acting Director General, Chris Najomo, in Abuja.
It is the second time within two years that the NCAA would suspend the airline’s operational licence over safety violations.
It said the latest action was based on “elevated safety concerns” posed by the airline.
“As a precautionary step, and in accordance with Sec 31 (7) of the Civil Aviation Act 2022, the Authority has imposed a suspension on your Air Operator Certificate (AOC) with effect from 24″ April, 2024 at 23:59 to allow for a thorough safety and economic audit,” the letter partly read.
The NCAA also stated, “The safety audit will entail a re-inspection of your organisation, procedures, personnel, and aircraft as specified by Part 1.3.3.3 of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations, while the economic audit will critically examine the financial health of your airline to guarantee its capability to sustain safe flight operations.”
Business
Anxiety as dollar exchanges for N1,420/$ on parallel market
Anxiety as dollar exchanges for N1,420/$ on parallel market
There are fears prices of essential goods including food items in Nigeria may begin to rise again as naira witnessed a major slide against the United States dollar at the foreign exchange market on Thursday.
The naira fell to N1,309/$ on the official market and N1,420 on the parallel market, according to multiple sources.
This indicates a fall of N90 or 6.8 per cent from N1,330 recorded on Wednesday.
The latest downward trend in naira rate after recording appreciable gain for some weeks followed high demand for dollars.
A report by The Punch quoted currency traders at the popular Wuse Zone 4 market in Abuja as buying the greenback note at N1,340 and selling at N1,420, leaving a profit margin of N80.
In Lagos, a trader Ibrahim Garba told Newstrends that the naira-dollar rate changes almost hourly.
“It was selling at N1,380/$ at 11am today (on Thursday) and by 2pm, it had moved to N1,400/$,” he said.
The naira has this lost 26.2 per cent in two weeks when compared to N1,125/$ on April 12, 2023 on the parallel market.
The Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday approved the allocation of $15.83 million to 1,583 BDC operators.
This was aimed at enhancing liquidity in the unofficial market.
The CBN in a letter to BDCs announced the allocation of $10,000 to operators across the country.
The allocation came at N1,021)$, aimed at stabilsing the foreign exchange market and ensuring accessibility of foreign currency to eligible end users.
Last weekend, the CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, said the Naira was declared the best-performing currency globally as of April 2024.
The naira was about the worst currency in March when it fell to as low as N1,600/$1 on the official market and N1800/$1 on the parallel market
Business
BDCs blame peer-to-peer Binance, others for naira fall
BDCs blame peer-to-peer Binance, others for naira fall
The president of the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria, BDCs, Aminu Gwadabe, says BDC operators are committed to preventing speculators from attacking the naira.
Mr. Gwadabe said this in an interview on Wednesday in Abuja.
The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria, as a self-regulatory body, has platforms to check the excesses of BDC operators, he noted.
“We have inaugurated state chapters whereby we can have a database of participants in the forex market. This is for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to understand this market and to know the participants; give them a simple registration,” he said.
Mr. Gwadabe said that the foreign exchange market needed a kind of harmonisation, centralization, and KYC to identify all business participants.
“This will enable the CBN to track other players in the market other than the BDCs and their levels of involvement. The BDCs is collaborating with the regulatory authorities for physical verification of offices using technology.
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“We want to balance international obligations with our own objectives. International obligations are templates that have been built without our input. We are coming up with our own template to balance it. We have seen some illegal economic behaviour, and the CBN and the security agencies are aware, and I am sure they will nip it in the bud,’’ he added.
He said the recent wave of naira depreciation was of concern to the BDC operators.
Mr. Gwadabe explained, “I am happy that the authorities, and even the BDCs as operators, have identified the peer-to-peer (P2P) platform. P2P is a platform like Binance where speculators use the dollar to buy USDT, a stablecoin that is pegged at one to the dollar.
“As long as Binance and such other platforms continue to be profitable, the naira will continue to depreciate. There are many of them in the system. Binance has been nipped in the bud, but there are still many. They are online platforms with no registration or restrictions.”
Mr. Gwadabe said that the CBN and the security agencies were already aware of the antics of the platforms. According to him, they are more of an illegal form of economic behaviour, and the people behind them lack patriotism.
“People have turned the dollar into an asset—a commodity of trade—which is why those platforms continue to thrive. We have seen where people are buying dollars into their domiciliary accounts to finance these schemes. A lot of millions of dollars are going out of the system. It is one USD to one USDT. The market can be liquid.
“Binance alone has four billion dollars of liquidity and more than two million transactions. Most of them source money to finance their transactions on the open market, and that is one of the reasons why the naira is depreciating,’’ he said.
BDCs blame peer-to-peer Binance, others for naira fall
Safety: NCAA to audit all domestic airlines, says Aviation minister
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Anxiety as dollar exchanges for N1,420/$ on parallel market
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