By Adewole Kehinde.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited kept to his words that in a matter of days, queues would disappear in all filling stations across the country and this became reality.
Yes, a few queues have returned to some feeling stations, especially in the northern part of the country. This is caused by the hike in the price of diesel.
By now, we know that the crisis between Ukraine and Russia has affected so many things, including the price and supply of diesel.
Mind you, diesel has been deregulated in Nigeria.
Someone asked me what deregulation is. Well, in a simple term, deregulation is the reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry.
In simple terms, the government will no longer decide the selling price of diesel in the country. That decision will now be taken by oil retailers.
Unlike petrol, diesel is deregulated, which means the increase in the international price of crude oil is responsible for what we see across Nigerian filling stations.
Deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry was approved on March 19, 2020.
According to the report, southern states paid the highest for a litre of diesel in the month under review, with South East citizens paying as much as N634.9 per litre, followed by the South West region at N628.5 a litre.
On the other hand, the North-Western areas paid the least for a litre of diesel at N487.84 per litre, followed by the North Eastern region with an average of N539.78 per litre, according to a market survey.
However, the price of diesel continues to experience a significant rise across the country, especially with the Ukraine-Russia crisis ravaging the world.
Most of the tankers transporting fuel from the depot to filling stations are seriously experiencing a bad time because of the hike in the price of diesel. I doubt if Lagos and its environs are experiencing fuel queues as the tankers don’t need to travel a long distance to supply fuel, thereby reducing the amount of diesel used in transportation.
