The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on Tuesday assured Nigerians that pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol, will drop very soon.
The Executive Secretary of the association, Mr Obafemi Olawore stated this while addressing newsmen in Lagos.
According to Olawore, despite non availability of foreign exchange at official exchange rate of N197 to $1, major marketers are relying on their upstream divisions to get dollars to finance their imports.
“I’m assuring Nigerians that pump price of petrol will soon drop as against claims that it will rise above the present band.
“Price won’t go up as long as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is bringing in products.
“Although, we are expected to source for dollars at the parallel market but the good news is that we are getting dollars from our upstream divisions.
“Shell supports Conoil, Agip to support Oando, ExxonMobil supports Mobil Oil Nigeria, Total supports Total Nigeria, MRS and Forte get support from NNPC,” he said.
The executive secretary, however, said that further that full deregulation was the answer to the challenges fuel scarcity in Nigeria.
“The solution to fuel scarcity is full deregulation.
“If there is no policy reversal, marketers will bring in products.
“The situation will encourage us to bring in more investment. We have invested in meters presently to ensure adequate metering.
“Others are doing their calculations in how to bring in investment in refineries and once we begin to refine domestically, it means we have attained full deregulation,” he said.
He denied the allegations that marketers were making abnormal profit because they were selling old stock.
Olawoore said that announcement of new price would have been made on May 7, but it was discovered that marketers had plenty stock and would have made abnormal profit.
“So, the government waited for the majority of our members to sell most of their old stocks before announcing new pump price on May 11.
“We have not been making much profit like that, what we have been doing is to continue in business since our fixed costs are always being recovered,” he said. (NAN)