As energy tariff surges in Petroleum and electricity, Nigeria ranks as having the sixth-highest energy cost in Africa, with its Petroleum being the most expensive among the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
According to data from GlobalPetrolPrices, only citizens of Ecuador, Congo, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates spend more on petrol than Nigerians, in the OPEC community.
The product is at least 26 times costlier in Nigeria, than in Venezuela and Iran, respectively. It is also three times more expensive than in Sudan, another Africa’s oil-producing country.
In Angola, a country declared as one of the most expensive countries to live, PMS is about 50 percent cheaper than in Nigeria.
With automotive gas oil (AGO), otherwise known as diesel, selling for about N220, the cost of the product is about 50 percent lower than the global average. Yet, AGO is much more expensive in Nigeria than in most of the country’s OPEC peers.
Also, The cost of the product in Angola, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan is 75 percent lower than in Nigeria.
Businesses in other OPEC members such as Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Qatar, and Kuwait also spend far less on AGO than their counterparts in Nigeria. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Tunisia are among Africa’s leading economies where AGO is cheaper than in Nigeria, a leading oil producer.
The data also revealed that the cost of electricity has pushed Nigeria up as having one of the most expensive energy costs in Africa.
Whereas the average global cost of electricity is N55.36 and N49.71, for kilowatt units of energy per hour (kWh) for households and businesses, respectively, Nigeria’s consumers pay as much as N62 kWh.
Consumers in Ghana, whose industrial sector seems to have been positioned to compete for Nigeria’s market, are charged N24.5 kWh on average.
Also, South Africa, Nigeria’s strongest continental competitor, provides its citizens with cheaper energy than Nigeria does.
Considering the new charges, Nigeria can only pull ahead of Kenya and other slimmer economies such as Togo, Burkina Faso, Gabon, and Cape Verde in the continent’s race to achieving energy cost competitiveness.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Monday, said: “Despite the recent increase in the price of fuel to N162 per litre, petrol prices in Nigeria remain the lowest in the West/Central African sub-region.”
However, the minister and his colleagues, who joined him in the briefing, did not draw a comparison between the cost of PMS in Nigeria and other traditional oil-producing countries.
The Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) may have also realised that its initial insistence that pump price is adjusted in line with the direction of the international market is no longer feasible.
