Ayo Omotayo, director-general (DG), National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), says the price of petrol is predicted to decrease to N750 per litre before the end of 2025.
Speaking during ‘Morning Brief,’ a Channels Television programme on Tuesday, Omotayo said the refining operations at Dangote refinery as well as other local refineries will be instrumental to the petrol price reduction.
“With the removal of the fuel subsidy, we have Dangote refinery coming on. We have other refineries. The refinery in Port Harcourt has worked continuously for 110 days if I’ve counted right. These are the short-term gains,” he said.
“We are buying fuel a little bit more expensive, but as we predict at the National Institute that if we continue with what we are currently doing, fuel by itself will come down. We’re looking at it coming down as low as N750 before the end of the year.
“And of course, foreign exchange, we believe, will still drop to about 1.3 before the end of the year, and it is going to continue like that as more of our refineries come into place. We will become a net exporter in the long run.”
He said there are currently few benefits of petrol subsidy removal but Nigerians will eventually “make up for whatever sacrifices we have made today”.
Speaking further on the removal of the petrol subsidy, he said that in the short term, the government has put in place palliatives so that “those who are suffering” would be able to make adjustments.
“We need to make adjustments to our spending. In the short term, yes. If you take the removal of subsidy on foreign exchange, you will see that now we do not have super rich people making premium off the dollars that are given to them,” he said.
“Everybody is in the fair marketplace, you go there if you need the dollar, go and look for no more restrictions. So everybody will have to adjust their spending and taste.”
On March 10, TheCable reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited had reportedly halted the naira-for-crude deal until 2030, as the government-owned company has forward-sold all its crude oil.
However, NNPC said negotiations are ongoing for a new naira-for-crude deal with Dangote refinery, as the current agreement expired at the end of March.
But on March 19, the Dangote refinery said it temporarily stopped the sale of petroleum products in naira amid delay in agreement on naira-to-crude deal.
Following the decision by the refinery, filling stations in Lagos increased the price of petrol to N930 per litre.