Analysts have said that the account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is increasingly becoming over-burdened as the landing cost of petrol has risen following the recent surge in global oil prices, Daily Trust reports.

The price of crude oil hit more than a three-year high at the beginning of last week rising to $70 per barrel for the first time since December 2014. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had in December 2017 hinted that Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) price of PMS was $620 per metric tonne, and that at N305 to a dollar, the landing cost of petrol translated to N171 per litre. At that time, oil price traded below $65 per barrel.

But analysts estimate that with the recent rise in oil price and based on the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) template, the cost of imported petrol now hovers at between N175-N180/per litre. At the landing cost of N171 per litre, NNPC recorded under-recovery of N26 on a litre of the commodity. However, with prices hovering between N175-N180, according to industry experts’ prediction, N33 is being spent on every litre of petrol by the NNPC to keep the pump price at N145.