With the exchange rate now hovering around N920/$, oil marketers have argued that the pump price of petrol could not remain at N617/litre, but at a higher rate if they must remain in business.
They again projected a cost of between N680/litre to N700/litre for PMS, based on an exchange rate of N920/litre, stressing that the forex rate was about N750/$ to N800/$ at the time the cost of petrol was pegged at N590/litre to N617/litre.
The oil marketers, however, pointed out that since the Federal Government had insisted that it would not increase the petrol price, it must then be “subsidising the commodity secretly, based on the prevalent exchange rate reality.”
Going by the projections and analysis of oil marketers and dealers, it, therefore, implies that the Federal Government might probably be spending about N90 as subsidy on petrol due to the crash of the local currency against the dollar.
It was gathered that the ex-depot price of petrol was around N585/litre on Thursday. The projected cost of N680/litre, going by the current forex rate, means that the government might be forced to spend about N95/litre as subsidy.
