Fakoyejo OlalekanThe President of the Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gillis-Harry, has revealed that the group will sanction retailers for fixing exorbitant prices to their Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol.
Gillis-Harry said a task force has been created to monitor petrol stations to prevent profiteering from retailers who buy the fuel at lower costs from depots belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
Against government-approved price of N189 – the same pump price NNPC’s Retail outlets sell to the public – some retail fuel stations sell petrol to consumers at prices ranging from N250 to N300 per litre outside Lagos and Abuja.
Gillis-Harry said oil marketers that bought fuel from NNPC depots have no reason to sell above N220, as defaulting operators will be fined and made to face sanctions from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
He said oil marketers that purchase PMS from private depots – which sell the products to retailers above NNPC distribution price to oil marketers – will not be sanctioned if their pump price is above N200.
“We frown at anybody selling so much above the price of what should be adequate. If they accessed the product at a high rate, then we would not sanction them.
“But if they accessed the product from NNPCL and sell it at exorbitant rates of N220, N250, we will sanction you. It is getting very punitive. So our task force now goes around and when we get them we invoke the powers of the NMDPRA over them,” Gilly-Harry he told Punch in a report on Thursday.
He opined that “By the time they (defaulters) go and settle all their fines, they will know that it is not worth selling at exorbitant prices with intention to profiteer.
“That is what we are doing right now and I think Nigerians should be appreciative of PETROAN as regards this development.”
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