Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital, hosted a number of eminent dignitaries on May 22 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the multi-billion dollars 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos State.

Refined products from the complex are expected to hit the market by August according to publicly available information just as 60 percent of the refined products are designated for domestic use while 40 percent will be exported because Nigeria is in dire need of hard currency.

One of the products that will be impacted is the Automotive Gas Oil, AGO, otherwise known as the diesel, which when its cost rises, manufacturers, transporters and the Nigerian consumers bear the brunt. A steady increase in the supply of this product is expected to have a moderating effect on its price, according to the opinions of industry watchers.

Meanwhile, prices of AGO across the states in the federation recorded an appreciable increase in the month of April 2023 on a month on month, as well as on year-on-year basis, recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have shown.

In April 2023, the average price of diesel was N842.25 per litre, which amounted to an increase of 28.69 percent on a year-on-year basis when compared to N654.46 per litre as of April 2022. The diesel price in April was 0.17 percent higher than its price of N840.81 a litre in March 2023.

Diesel price was cheapest in the south-south geopolitical zone. Last month, diesel cost N807.59 a litre in the south-south geopolitical zone, a decrease of 1.14 percent when compared to N816.92 a litre in March 2023.

Within the same sub region, diesel price was most expensive in Akwa Ibom at N874 a litre, a cheapest in Bayelsa at N708.04 per litre.

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The south east geopolitical zone came second as a litre of diesel cost N809.29 a litre in April as against N841.89 a litre in the previous month. Within the south east sub region, the cheapest price of a litre of diesel was recorded in Anambra at N773.56 while the most expensive price was recorded in Ebonyi at N848.50 a litre.

The average price of a litre of diesel in the south west geopolitical zone was N830.57 in April. The least cost of a litre of diesel was N814 in Ogun State while the highest price was N857.86 per litre in Ekiti State.

As against the average price of N873.22 per litre in the north central geopolitical zone, the highest price of N900.15 per litre was recorded Plateau State while the least cost of N852.08 per litre in Benue State.

In the north east geopolitical zone, diesel was most expensive in Adamawa State at N980.33 per litre, and least expensive in Gombe State at N796 per litre.

The average price of a litre of diesel was N829.97 across the north west geopolitical zone. The highest price was in Jigawa State at N885.22 a litre while the least price of N773.33 per litre was recorded in Kebbi State.

In all, the states where a litre of diesel was the most expensive were Adamawa, Bauchi, and Borno at N980.33, N934.46 and N900.50 pe litre, and all the states are in the north east geopolitical zone.

On the contrary, Bayelsa, N708.04; Kebbi, N773.33, and Anambra, N773.56 were where a litre of diesel was the least expensive in April.