The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says the lifting of petroleum products from Lagos-based Ɗangote Refinery will moderate the cost of transportation and ease food inflation.
CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, stated this at a press briefing yesterday at the end of the 297th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Abuja.
The CBN chief also announced the committee’s decision to further raise the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) which measures interest rates by 50 basis points from 26.75% to 27.25% to moderate inflation rate which stands at 32.15%.
According to the Consumer Price Index report recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the headline inflation rate eased to 32.15% in August 2024, while food inflation stood at 37.52% in the same month.
The NBS said the rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following items, bread, maize, grains, guinea corn, bread, cereals yam, Irish potatoes, water yam, cassava tuber, palm oil, vegetable oil, among others.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) began loading the first batch of petrol from the Ɗangote Refinery mid-September, and said it got petrol at N898 per litre from the private refinery.
Before lifting petrol from the Ɗangote Refinery, NNPCL retail outlets in Lagos sell petrol for around N855, but said a litre of Ɗangote petrol would sell for N950 per litre in Lagos and N1,019 in Borno. However, Ɗangote Refinery denied selling petrol to the NNPCL at N898. NNPCL insisted that it got petrol from Ɗangote Refinery at N898 per litre and challenged the latter to release the price it sold petrol. The NNPCL further released a breakdown of pricing it sell Ɗangote petrol at its filling stations across the country.
Meanwhile, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has said that it doesn’t make sense for the to sell petrol lifted from the Ɗangote Refinery higher than imported ones.
Last December, Aliko Ɗangote, commenced operations at his $20bn facility sited in Lagos with 350,000 barrels a day. The refinery, which was initially bogged by regulatory battles, hopes to achieve its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day by the end of the year.
The refinery has begun the supply of diesel and aviation fuel to marketers in the country and now petrol.
