NIGERIANS LAMENT AS KEROSENE PRICE HITS AN ALL TIME HIGH

Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), known as kerosene, hit an outrageous price of N600 per litre at the weekend, worsening the pains of over 30 million households who depend on the product for domestic use.

In its place, millions of Nigerians who use it for their stoves, lanterns, and other purposes, are now seeking alternatives to the commonly used petroleum product and have resorted to using charcoal. The scarcity hit major cities across the country, with most retail outlets in Abuja , Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Kano, Kaduna and Abia states going completely out of stock.

The scarcity of the product worsened with the product selling between N200 and N600 per litre nationwide, depending on proximity of the area to Lagos, where the loading depots for the product are situated.

DPK has been deregulated and majority of marketers, who hitherto reduced importation of the product have now halted importation due to difficulty in accessing foreign exchange.

“The shutdown of refineries that produce DPK through which the market is augmented, is another major problem. The Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC ) is now the major importer of the product and except the majors, most of the independent marketers, if not all, depend on loading from PPMC ’s depots. And this explains r

A marketer disclosed.

The price of cooking gas has also skyrocketed, making it unaffordable to some middle income earners, some of who have reverted to kerosene as a cheaper source of energy. “This has also increased the pressure on kerosene and contributed to its scarcity , because it contributes to the high demand for the scarce product with limited supply, ” the marketer added.
In Abuja, the product is mostly sold at the “black market” at a very exorbitant price. A litre of the product goes for as much as N270 to N300, depending on the area.

A factional secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigerian (IPMAN ), Alhaji Danladi Pasali, said that the product is in high demand because some industries use kerosene for one thing or the other in the process of manufacturing their products.
In Kano, residents have dumped the use of kerosene for charcoal and firewood following the rising cost. The product now sells at N1,200 a gallon from just N50 while in Oyo state, a beer bottle of kerosene now sells between N160 and N200.

Investigation also revealed that it is hard for individuals to get the kerosene at the filling stations even at the cost of N250 because the filling station owners prefer dealing with middle marketers, who buy in large quantity and thereafter sell to individuals.