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Diesel price to hit N1,500, as importers urge govt to raise fuel cost

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Diesel price may hit N1,500 in July, rising from N800, the President of Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association (NOGASA), Bennett Korie, has revealed, as he called on Nigerian government to raise the cost of petrol.

It was gathered that shortage of forex is part of the factors driving the cost of diesel high. Korie explained to the media in Abuja on Tuesday, that importers of the commodity are sourcing for dollars in the black market, due to limited FX in the official market.

Forex in the black market is expensive, and the cost is weighing on the price of diesel, which Korie said will increase to N1,500 in the next two weeks if the government doesn’t intervene in the forex shortage, as well as lead to the end of operation for some companies.

“If you go round now you will see that about 75% of filling stations in Nigeria have gone out of business. There is no diesel to take fuel to their stations. All of them are going down.” Korie said.

Stating further that, “it is not that the fuel is not there, but the cost of bringing it to the stations is too high. We know that the crisis between Ukraine and Russia has contributed badly, but the government has to do something fast, otherwise we are going to buy diesel in the next two weeks at N1000 to N1500/litre.”

Read also:Reps to probe hike in prices of diesel, cooking gas

He said one of the solution to curb the inflation in diesel price is by government raising price of petrol, in order to cut the dollar spend on fuel subsidy, “The only way out, if you want to know, is that they (the government) should increase the price of fuel a little to reduce the money spent on PMS subsidy.

“I know Nigerians will not be happy to hear this, but this is the only solution. They should increase the price of fuel a little so that the savings will enable the Central Bank of Nigeria to have enough foreign exchange.

“You and I know that we import everything now in Nigeria. Diesel is an imported product and it is fully deregulated. So the importers are not getting dollars at the official CBN rate to import diesel. Everybody is going to the black market to get dollars to import their products and so you expect the price of diesel to be high.” Korie said.

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