The House of Representatives and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) last week facilitated a deal between petroleum products marketers and airline operators to keep the price of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), at N500 per litre.
The ATK is popularly known as aviation fuel.The agreement was reached on Monday at the second day of the investigative hearing of the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on High Cost of Aviation Fuel which held at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.Presenting the highlights of the agreement, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer GMD/CEO of NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, stated that both parties were represented.The petroleum product marketers were represented by the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and the Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA).At the other end, the aviation industry stakeholders were represented by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as both groups agreed to have the pump price of aviation fuel pegged at N500 per litre for the next three days.“In the next three days, representatives of MOMAN, DAPMAN and Airline Operators of Nigeria would sit down and adopt transparent bases of pricing.“That as requested by the Association of Airline Operators of Nigeria, they will be granted license by their authority to also import ATK so as to have a way of benchmarking prices.“They will also have a reference exchange rate for the naira,” Kyari said.Stakeholders also resolved to engage and agree on a premium which would also be different from client-to-client depending on the volumes they want to buy and the credit limit that each marketer can permit.This is expected to help establish a transparent basis for pricing, eliminate price discrepancies and would throw up the real market value of the product.Earlier, the Executive Director Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr Ogbogu Ukoha, highlighted some of the factors that sent the price of ATK over the roof.“One of the major factors influencing the high cost of ATK remains the issue of availability of forex that is, the source from which marketers acquire their Dollars either from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the parallel market.“When that is added to the fact that ATK is deregulated, it becomes a commercial dilemma whereby marketers can’t sell below certain price due to forex barriers and challenges of landing cost.“However, airline operators insist that they can’t buy products above a particular amount if air fares will remain affordable,” Ukoha said.NNPC GMD/CEO, Malam Mele KyariNNPC GMD/CEO, Malam Me.
NAN
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