Aviation fuel never sold at N700 per litre, oil marketers refute airline operators’ claim

The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has refuted claims by airline operators in the country that aviation fuel was selling for N700 per litre.

Airline operators in the country had on Friday, announced a shutdown of operations starting from Monday over high cost of aviation fuel.

According to the airline operators, they were buying aviation fuel for as high as N700 per litre.

They eventually called off the shutdown after intervention by the Federal Government.

But Executive Secretary, MOMAN, Clement Isong, in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria said that was not true.

He said he was not “aware that aviation fuel is sold currently anywhere at N700 per litre.”

“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 there by 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 (CBN) 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.

“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,” he said.