By Thompson ABISOLA
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it is presently discussing with the World Bank to determine the actual daily Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) consumption of Nigeria.
The Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, NNPC, Ikem Obih, said this at a panel section at the ongoing 2018 Nigerian Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
Obih said 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 the NNPC was partnering with the World Bank to make progress in 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 the people.
“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 every day to buy for their cars, for their generators at home and for other uses of PMS.
He, however, said, 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 had 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 cross-border 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 was 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.
“We have challenges in the pipelines that run through land, specifically, the System 2B for instance, the one that runs around Lagos. It remains a big challenge, because there is a mafia that lives and feeds on those pipelines.
“In the last two years, we have done a lot of work on our pipelines. Some of the pipelines that had not worked for as much as 15 years, we have managed to put them back in operation.
“So as we speak, we have fixed the one from Port Harcourt to Aba, we are just about to commission from Aba to Enugu.
“We are already doing preliminary work from Enugu to Makurdi, we are pumping all the way from Atlas Cove to Mosimi, to Ibadan.
“We are clearing our right of way, all the way to Ilorin. When the refinery was up in Kaduna, we were pumping to Kano and Jos. We are restoring our pipeline at the moment,” Obih said.
The Chief Executive Officer Downstream, NNPC, Mr Anibor Kragha, also said the country’s refineries were presently producing, though in little quantity.
Kragha said that the ex-depot price for products from the refineries stood at N103 per litre.
He also noted that the NNPC had held discussions with global energy information company, Platts, in preparatory to when Nigeria’s refineries, as well as the private ones come on stream.
He said this would develop a West African Refining Pricing for products coming from the region.
The Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria and the Managing Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mr Osagie Okunbor applauded NNPC’s disposition toward the Joint Venture Cash Call arrangement.
According to him, it has helped restored investors’ confidence in the Nigerian petroleum industry.
