Nigeria Imported 18bn Litres of Petrol, Produced Only 166m In 2019
Nigeria last year imported about 18 billion litres of petrol for local consumption at an estimated N3 trillion, while it produced only 166,332,185 locally.
A breakdown of the import data showed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was responsible for importing 99.61percent of the figure while other major marketers accounted for 0.39percent, according to a report by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
The agency said that 18,623,992,092 litres of the product (also known as petrol) were supplied to the domestic market as at November 2019, adding that the average sufficiency of the product stood at 40.68 days.
This revelation however has irked some stakeholders who criticised the poor state of the country’s refineries and the absence of modular refineries.
According to the Executive Secretary of PPPRA, Abdulkadir Saidu, about 1,612 vessels laden with different petroleum products docked on Nigerian waters in 2019, while only 166,332,185 litres of petrol were produced locally during the year.
Going by the open market price of N174.81 kobo per litre published on the PPPRA’s website, the importation amounts to about 30 percent of the nation’s N10.59 trillion 2020 budget.
Considering that the total budgeted oil revenue for 2019 was N3.73tn, oil and gas expert, Michael Faniran, who spoke with The Guardian, regretted that the cost of petrol importation has almost wiped off the nation’s crude oil revenue.
“At the official exchange rate of N305, the N3tn spent on importing PMS is about $9.9bn. This puts so much pressure on our forex demand and ultimately the exchange rate of the naira to a dollar,” Faniran told the Guardian.
According to him, Nigeria’s contribution to the economy of the countries where refineries are located is more significant than her total capital expenditure of N2.03tn for the same period.
“Nigeria has no choice but to increase her local refining capacity to confront this scourge,” he added.
The PPPRA report showed that petroleum products imported into the country were 4,586,878,439 litres of AGO, 128,110,313 litres of HHK, 951,769 084 litres of ATK, 306,791,987 litres of Base Oil, 125,561,557 litres of bitumen and 45,980,957 litres of LFPO.
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