Aviation fuel not selling at N700 per litre – Oil marketers

The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has debunked claims that Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), also known as aviation fuel, was being sold at N700 per litre in some parts of the country.

Mr Clement Isong, Executive Secretary, MOMAN, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.

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The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) had threatened to go on strike on May 9, claiming that the cost of aviation fuel had risen to about N700 per litre from N190 per litre.

However, the strike was, called off after appeals by the federal government and other stakeholders in the aviation sector.

Isong said: “I am not aware that aviation fuel is sold currently anywhere at N700 per litre. There has been an intervention by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd., which is now bringing in ATK. It gets into tank, all costs together, at about N500 per litre. If we use Ikeja (Murtala Mohammed Airport, local as a benchmark, it is sold thereby marketers between N540 and N550 per litre.

“Nobody with common sense will go and bring in ATK now that NNPC is bringing in product and selling it cheap. NNPC is bringing in the product because it is swapping it with crude and when it swaps it with crude it uses the Central Bank of Nigeria exchange rate of N419 to a dollar.

“Meanwhile the product is deregulated. So no normal person can go and get it at that exchange rate. You cannot use N589 (black market rate) to a dollar to bring in the product and sell at N550 per litre.”

According to him, the intervention by the NNPC has discouraged marketers from importing aviation fuel because it will be a bad business decision.

“ATK as a product is handled very carefully. It is continuously filtered. It is carried by special trucks, so there are extra handling costs.

“Even with these costs, it is sold at the tarmac between N540 and N550 per litre in Lagos and by the time you carry it all over the country including transportation cost, it will be sold at about N570 or N580 at the farthest airport from Lagos.

“There is nowhere aviation fuel is sold at N700 per litre,” the executive secretary said.