Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it is resisting the temptation of hiking the ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in February because it has to wait for conclusion of the stakeholders and labour consultation meeting.
It assured the consumers that in spite of the rise in the price of crude oil in the international market, it has ruled out the possibility of any increment in February.
The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, explained these in a statement.
He said: “The decision was to allow ongoing engagements with organized labour and other stakeholders on an acceptable framework that will not expose the ordinary Nigerian to any hardship, to be concluded”.
NNPC urged petroleum products marketers not to engage in hoarding of petrol so as not to create artificial scarcity and unnecessary hardship for Nigerians while giving assurance it has enough stock of petrol to keep the nation well supplied for about 40 days.
It further called on relevant regulatory authorities to step up monitoring of the activities of marketers with a view to sanctioning those involved in products hoarding or arbitrary increase of pump price.
It would be recalled the nation’s downstream sector was deregulated in March 2020 with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, stating that the prices of petroleum products would be determined by prevailing market forces.

By John Ofikhenua