Adewale Sanyaolu, Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Wednesday, said it is presently discussing with the World Bank to determine the actual daily Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) consumption of Nigeria.
Mr Henry Obih, the Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, NNPC said this at a panel section at the ongoing 2018 Nigerian Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
Obih said that the Corporation had been mandated by the National Executive Council (NEC) to work with the Ministry of Finance to determine the actual daily consumption of petrol in the country. He said irrespective of the current high cost of fuel import, the country’s refineries presently sell PMS at N103 per litre. Obih said that NNPC was partnering with the World Bank to make progress on a study on Nigeria’s actual consumption.
According him, we are presently in a joint project with the Federal Ministry of Finance. We are doing a study around consumption to determine the actual consumption by Nigerians.
“We have to determine what we call the daily load out or the evacuation, as against the actual consumption, what people go to the pump everyday to buy for their cars, for their generators at home and for other uses of PMS. He, however, said that in terms of daily truck out from depots around the country and in terms of the records of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the NNPC trucked out 48 million litres daily in 2016 and 50 million litres in 2017.
“This is why the National Economic Council has mandated that we work with the Federal Ministry of Finance.
“We also held a meeting with the World Bank about six weeks ago, and we are trying to progress in a global study that would help us get around the actual numbers of what we consume in Nigeria.
“But again, one significant challenge is the fact that we have crossborder smuggling. Nigeria remains the cheapest source of PMS in the West African sub-region.
“All our neighbouring countries are selling at over 200 per cent high of the price that we pay at the pump.
“If you go to Niger, Cameroun, then it is in the 400 per cent region. For the rest of the countries, it is about N360 to N370, as against the N145 per litre that we sell.
“That is sufficient incentives for those who want to take the product across the border to sell and make a good margin. “What that means if we do a complete study today that is focused on actually tracking the sub-groups that Nigeria buy fuel from, we would still have a margin of error that is significant.
“This is because the volume that leaves Nigeria through the borders cannot be reported in accuracy today.’’
According to him, the NNPC is working closely with the Customs, DSS, and with other security agencies, and things have improved significantly. Obih lamented that there is a mafia living and feeding on a critical segment of the country’s pipeline network, adding that the NNPC had continued to invest in the repairs of major pipeline across the country.