With N264 per litre, Nigeria has the lowest gasoline prices in West Africa.

Out of 12 West African nations, Nigeria has the lowest Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), or gasoline, pump price.

Nigeria ranked at the bottom of the list with a petrol pump price of N264 per litre, according to the most recent weekly Industry Data Sheet published by the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN).

With a price of N752.56 per liter, Senegal topped the list of countries charging for gasoline, closely followed by Mali at N658.26, Burkina Faso at N645.84, Guinea at N643.08, the Ivory Coast at N619.62, and Ghana at N560.28.

The others are: Benin N494.04 per liter, Sierra Leone N502.78, Cameroun N554.76, Togo N523.22, and Liberia N486.68.

In order to arrive at the gas station pricing, MOMAN said that all USD per liter values were obtained from Globalpetrolprices.com, while it used the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rate of N460 per USD for Naira per liter prices.

Remember that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) warned that substantial amounts of petrol were being smuggled out of Nigeria after it had received federal government subsidies as early as 2021.

The petroleum product, according to the border security organization, is being diverted as far as Mali.

Col. Hameed Ali, the Controller-General of the NCS, expressed his outrage that the filling stations around the land borders had been permitted by the previous Department of Petroleum Resources while the NNPC continued to provide the product to the stations against Customs’ advise.

According to Ali, the circumstance is to blame for the NNPC’s increased daily fuel consumption releases.

The head of Customs made this statement on Monday in Abuja at a public hearing on the fiscal strategy paper and medium term expenditure framework for 2022–2024 held by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance.

James Faleke, the committee’s chairman, had earlier questioned Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget, and national planning, as to why the federal government forecasted crude oil per barrel at $57 for the 2022 budget when the price is currently around $70 on the international market.

Ahmed, however, claimed that the government was under-recovering gasoline subsidies by using the differentials to pay them.

“The crude oil price that we propose in the budget is the product of consultations with the NNPC and a review of the research that is done by EIA as well as the World Bank and other institutions,” the minister had stated. And we typically choose the middle ground. We consider the price forecasts for 2022, 2023, and 2024 rather than the price as it is today.

“Fortunately for us, the rise in the price of crude oil should have brought in more money for the federation right now. Nevertheless, the impact is not felt because of our severe under-recovery brought on by fuel subsidies.

Ali, however, criticized the fact that in addition to being spent on subsidies, the fuel was being trafficked to other West African nations where the price at the pump was greater.

“The issue of smuggling of fuel from Nigeria to the neighboring nations is simply because of pricing discrepancy,” the head of customs said. The higher pricing outside of our borders and shores are what draw people to export this commodity. Also, this product extends as far as Mali, not just Benin, Niger, or Chad.