Nigerians Spent $5bn on Petrol in One Year, Consumption Rises Above 100% in Three Months, NNPC Reveals

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has revealed that it sold a total of N2.106 trillion of refined products to Nigerians between February 2020 and February 2021, with petrol taking a huge chunk of N2.070 trillion (about $5bn) of the entire sales.

Making the disclosure in its delayed full Monthly Financial Operations Report (MFOR) for February, the corporation also disclosed that in terms of quantity, 17.215 billion litres of fuel, accounting for 99.37 of total refined products were imported during the period under review.

In its breakdown of total sales for the month, the NNPC noted that N188.15 billion was made on the sale of white products (cooking gas, gasoline, kerosene, diesel and petrol) in the month of February 2021, lower than N190.72 billion sales recorded in January 2021.

In the review month, the NNPC stated that 1.414 billion litres of white products were sold and distributed, compared with 1.436.40 billion litres in the month of January 2021.

According to the national oil company, this comprised 1.414 billion litres of petrol and 0.17 billion litres of diesel, consumed by Nigerians during the period.

However, it was unclear how local consumption figures jumped from just 50.53 million litres in February 2021 to 103 million litres in May, as recently announced by the Group Managing Director of the corporation, Mallam Mele Kyari. Although Kyari, who spoke during a stakeholders meeting organised by the corporation to discuss how best to stop smuggling in the country, had blamed illegal sales across the borders for the development, no new reasons were given for the over 100 per cent increase in consumption from February to May ,2021.

“In very recent data, we saw what we really wanted in the beginning of May and June. There was a day we loaded out about 103 million litres of PMS (petrol) within one day across the depots,” he had said during the meeting.

The petrol consumption figures showed that from February to May 2020, 59.6 million, 53.16 million, 33.01 million litres and 30.67 million litres were distributed by the Petroleum Product Marketing Company (PPMC) respectively.

In June 2020, it was 44.84 million litres, in July 2020, consumption was still relatively low at 33.42 million litres, it was 30.67 million litres in in August 2020, while in September 2020, daily distribution was 20.1 million.

Furthermore, average daily product distribution sales volume was 39.50 million litres in October last year, 57.53 million litres in November and was 73.10 million and 46.34 million litres in December and January 2021 respectively.

In addition, the just-released NNPC data showed that during the Covid-19 lockdown last year, fuel importation decreased from an average of 1.812 billion litres in April 2020 , to a miserly 495 million litres in May, but increased to 767 million in June before stabilising and hitting 2.39 billion in October, the highest in the entire 2020.

Furthermore, the NNPC stated that between January 2020 to January 2021, cumulative production from all fields totalled 704.30 barrels of crude oil, translating to an average daily production of 1.77 barrels per day.

According to the report, comparing the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) performance to national production, the company’s production share was 10.16 per cent, with the NNPC subsidiary projected to ramp-up production level to 250,000bp/d in the near future.

Production from NPDC wholly operated assets amounted to 27,096,285 barrels or 38.47 per cent of the total NPDC production, with Okono Okpoho (OML 119) alone producing 19.42 per cent of the NPDC wholly owned operated assets and 7.47 per cent of the total NPDC production.

Also, the report stated that in the NPDC operated JV assets, in which it owns 55 per cent controlling interest, crude oil production amounted to 30,537,911 barrels or 43.36 per cent of the NPDC total production.

In January 2021, NNPC revealed that a total volume of 49.26 million barrels of crude oil and condensate was lifted by all parties, adding that out of this volume, 10.22 million barrels was lifted by NNPC on behalf of the federation, while the balance of 39.04 million barrels were lifted by the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and the independents.

“Of the 10.22 million barrels lifted on the account of NNPC in January 2021, 5.74 million barrels and 0.57 million barrels were for domestic and export markets respectively.

“At an average oil price of $56.80/barrel and exchange rate of N379/$, the domestic crude oil lifted by NNPC is valued at $326,134,455 or a naira equivalent of N123,604,958,630.71 for the month of January 2021.

“The remaining crude oil lifted for export was valued at $30,993,088 at an average price of $54.16/barrel. The total value of crude oil lifted on the account of NNPC in January 2021 was thus $357,127,544,” the report noted.

From January 2020 to January 2021, NNPC revealed that a total volume of 698 million barrels of crude oil and condensate was lifted by all parties.

As had been the trend for some time, in February 2021, the three refineries processed no crude and had a combined yield efficiency of zero per cent, “owing largely to ongoing rehabilitation works in the refineries,” NNPC noted.

“The combined value of output by the three refineries (at Import Parity Price) for the month of February 2021 amounted to approximately N0.10billion. No associated crude plus freight cost for the three refineries since there was no production but operational expenses amounted to N6.98 billion. This resulted to an operating deficit of N6.88billion by the refineries,” the corporation said.

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

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