The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said the hike in petrol pump price is due to discovery of coronavirus vaccine.
Days back the price of crude oil in international market tilted up and arising from the increase, petrol pump price followed same pattern jumping from N158 to N168.
Sylva attributed the upward trend to the announcement by pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, that it has discovered effective vaccine for COVID-19.
The minister made this claim while addressing State House Correspondents on Monday, after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari in his office at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
“Now what happened recently was because of the announcement of a vaccine for COVID-19 by Pfizer. With that crude oil prices went up a little bit. Of you have been following crude oil prices you would have seen that crude oil prices went up a little bit, as a result of this announcement.
“So when crude oil prices go up a little bit, then you will see that it instantly reflects on the price of petrol, which is a derivative of crude oil. That’s why you see that there’s this movement and if we listen to ourselves, this is the same explanation we’ve been giving,” he said.
