The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporations (NNPC) says it has not increased the Ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr Kennie Obateru, disclosed this on Friday, while addressing newsmen in Abuja.

Ex-deport price is the price at which oil marketers buy products at the depots, the price is what determines the price at which petrol stations will sell to motorists.

Reacting to new PMS Pricing template released by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), which indicted N212.61k Pump price for the month of March, Obateru urged Nigerians and motorists not to engage in panic buying of the products as the corporation had no plans to increase its ex-depot price.

“NNPC stands by that statement that we issued on March 1 that we are not increasing the Ex-depot price in the month of March and that is what it is.

“There is no need for panicking and I can tell you from our own point of view that we will not increase the pump price of petrol and we are still standing by that March 1 decision.

“We have sufficiency of product in the country and there is really no need for the public to panic. Like I have stated, the ex-depot price for the NNPC is still at it is, it has not increased and it will not increase in this month of March,’’ he said.

In a now-deleted template published Thursday night by the PPPRA, the retail price of petrol was shown to sell between the market band of N209.61 and N212.61.

With ex-depot price standing at N206.42 per liter, the March template showed that the landing cost for petrol per liter is N189.61.

FRCN Abuja