An investigation by The Daily, http://www.thedaily-ng.com, showed that the price of petrol, which previously sold at N162 per litre has risen to N175 per litre in many private outlets.

The development was mainly attributed to the rise of crude oil prices, meaning that refiners around the world have incurred additional cost in the process of procuring and refining the product.

According to them, the cost has been shifted to consumers in Nigeria, especially as the nation, currently import a bulk of its petroleum products from the international market.

However, the price remained unchanged at the outlets of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC nationwide.

The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, had called on Nigerians to be ready to bear the pains of increased petrol pump price as crude oil price climbs above $60 per barrel.

Chief Sylva, who disclosed that at the official launch of Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimisation Program on Tuesday, Sylva said: “Since we are optimizing everything, NNPC needs to also think about the optimization of product cost because as we all know oil prices are where they are today, $60. As desirable as this is, this has serious consequences as well on product prices. So we want to take the pleasure and we should as a country be ready to take the pain. Today the NNPC is taking a big hit from this. We all know that there is no provision in the budget for subsidy.”

He added: “So, somewhere down the line, I believe that the NNPC cannot continue to take this blow. There is no way because there is no provision for it. As a country, let us take the benefits of the higher crude oil prices and I hope we will also be ready to take a little pain on the side of higher product prices.”