The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the average retail price of a litre of petrol increased to N750.17 in June — up from the N545.83 recorded in the same month last year.

This signifies a 37.44 percent year-on-year increase, the NBS said in its report, tagged, ‘Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol) Price Watch (June 2024)’, released on Wednesday.

“Likewise, comparing the average price value with the previous month (.i.e. May 2024), the average retail price decreased by 2.53% from N769.62,” the report reads.

On the state profile analysis, NBS said Benue had the highest average retail price for petrol at N854.55. Jigawa and Rivers came next with N847 and N810, respectively.

“On the other side, Lagos, Kwara, and Ogun States had the lowest average retail prices for Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol), at N626.94, N650.00, and N670.63 respectively,” NBS said.

“Lastly, on the Zonal profile, the South-South Zone had the highest average retail price of N794.64, while the South-West Zone had the lowest price of N696.42.”

On July 5, Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, said the evacuation of petrol to border states reduced by seven million litres in two months.

Kyari said the evacuation of petrol dropped from 32 million litres per day to about 25 million litres amid customs’ anti-smuggling operations.

Petrol queues recently resurfaced in parts of Lagos and Abuja due to a scarcity of the commodity. The NNPC attributed the shortage to the disruption of ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of petrol between mother vessels and daughter vessels.

This, the national oil firm, said was due to recent thunderstorms and the consequential flooding of trucking routes which constrained the movement of petrol to Abuja from coastal corridors.

The Cable