Kerosene, Cooking Gas Scarcity Worsen As Prices Hit N320/Litre, N305/Kg

The scarcity of Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK) known as kerosene and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) also called cooking gas has worsened, with the commodities selling for N320 per litre and N305 per kg respectively.


Checks by New Telegraph revealed that the supply of kerosene by the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which increased recently, worsened at the weekend.

Many marketers who could not import the product allegedly due to foreign exchange unavailability depend on PPMC’s supply and the dearth of importation by the company made the scarcity worsen.

Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG), Lagos zone, Tokunbo Korodo, said at the weekend that the loading of kerosene at the PPMC’s depot is being grounded by the unavailability of the product. The situation, he told newsmen, may worsen if nothing is done to address the situation. His view was corroborated by one of the marketers who lift products at the PPMC depot.

“As we speak, the importation of kerosene has drastically reduced because many marketers did not see the product as a commodity of priority like PMS-petrol. This has made the PPMC to have the monopoly of DPK’s importation, loading and supply. “Now that the major player has few products, the scarcity will continue to manifest, until something is urgently done,” he told New Telegraph after his anonymity was guaranteed.

He added that prices of kerosene and diesel might further go up following acute dearth of the products. Asked why marketers have refused to import the product despite the liberaisation of the market, he blamed this on what he called the unavailability of foreign exchange (forex), unpaid debts by Federal Government and other government’s harsh policies.

The prices of the products have already gone up as kerosene is sold between N220 and N320 per litre, while diesel is sold between N150 and N200 depending on the retail outlet. A cross section of marketers said there was a huge shortfall in the importation of these products because of scarcity of forex. Although the price of kerosene and diesel had been deregulated before now, their prices in the past week had shot up by about 70 and 52 per cents respectively.

While the price of cooking gas has also risen by 40 per cent within a week, compared to N2,500 that 12.5kg of cooking gas sold since the first quarter, the price of cooking gas has risen to between N3,800 and N4,000. Also, the price of kerosene has increased from around N220 per litre to N320 per litre, while diesel now sells at an average price of N160 per litre from around N125 per litre.