It took only a letter from the Petroleum Products and Marketing Company (PPMC) last week for the pump price of diesel to jump to more than N100 at most filling stations in Lagos.
Government had recently deregulated the pricing of both Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), also known as diesel, as well as Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO), but the full effect became manifest last week when the depot price of diesel jumped up to N93 per litre.
Officials of NNPC confirmed that government no longer has a hand ion fixing the pump price of both AGO and LPFO and that market forces will determine the prevailing price.
But our correspondent confirmed from industry sources over the weekend that most depots do not have sufficient quantity of the products and that this is also affecting most filling stations which now sell for more than N100.
Most depot owners accuse PPMC of attempting to blackmail them, saying that even the government agency did not have he product in their depots and that the little that is being circulated were form the independent depot owners.
Those who spoke to our correspondent in Lagos last week confirmed scarcity and that the price was as a result of demand outweighing supply and that the development is also a fall out of deregulation
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