Marketers Project Petrol Price Reduction As Oil Falls

Brent, the oil against which Nigeria’s crude is priced, continued its fall in price last Thursday with oil marketers in the country projecting that such a persistent plunge in global oil prices could lead to a reduction in petrol pump price.
Industry figures showed that global oil prices maintained their steady decline last Thursday as Brent dropped to $62.92/barrel as at 6.18pm, shedding 0.24/barrel when compared to the previous day’s cost.
The commodity has been falling in price after attaining a high cost of $70/barrel last month.
Early in March 2021, Brent rose to a high of $70/barrel, which was the highest price in more than a year, but it had been dropping in price since then and had hovered around $60/barrel on most occasions.
Reacting to the development, oil marketers in Nigeria stated that the fall in international crude oil prices could lead to a reduction in petrol price soon.
They said that this would have been more pronounced if the downstream sector of Nigeria’s oil industry had been fully deregulated.
When asked whether the drop in global crude oil prices would warrant a possible decrease in petrol price in Nigeria, the National Public Relations Officer, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Chinedu Ukadike, responded in the affirmative.
He, however, noted that the dollar exchange rate was also a factor that affected petrol price.