The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that the price of diesel has crashed by about 42% nationwide. Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) had a huge downslide over the last six months, following key strategic interventions by NNPC, Inside Business reported.

NNPC’S Group General Manager, Ndu Ughamadu, stated that in the first quarter of 2017, retail prices of AGO, which is one of the deregulated products, shot to an all-time high of $0.95 per liter in major demand centers across the country, All Africa informed.

Such unpleasant situation placed a huge burden on truck drivers, who need the product for transporting their vehicles; and on the nation’s manufacturing sector, which requires it to run its operations as well as on the masses, which need it for household power generation.

However, following strategic intervention efforts by the NNPC towards sustained improvement in the supply of the diesel, the product’s retail prices at the end of May 2017 ranged from $0.55 to $0.63 across the country.

Ughamadu noted that some of the Corporation’s strategic interventions in this regard include improving the supply of AGO and remodeling of the product distribution to address sufficiency issues across the country.

Ughamadu added “Since January this year, we have worked very hard with relevant stakeholders to improve distribution from refinery depots, by implementing a robust loading program,”