The Group Executive Director Upstream of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Bello Rabiu, says about $1.8 billion is used every three months to bring Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, commonly called petrol, into the country.
Rabiu made this disclosure on Wednesday while speaking with State House Correspondents in Abuja.
The NNPC top shot explained that between $16 million and $20 million are used daily to import the product to Nigeria, which amounts to $1.8 billion per quarter.
He said the import bill depended on both volume and the price, adding that a cargo of product, about 40 million litres, as at today costs about $13 million to $14 million dollars.
Rabiu explained that Nigeria produces about 2.2 million barrels of crude per day but only about one million belonged to NNPC through 60 per cent equity in the Joint Venture.
He was reacting to the inability of refineries in the country to satisfy local consumption, which has forced the NNPC to rely on importation.
“The average equity crude for sale is not up to one million barrels which means that the total amount of money we can get is about $40 million dollars,” Rabiu informed.
“We try to maximize what is available, that is why we said we need to diversify, export more and import less,” he added.
According to him, more countries now produced oil and that some producers that came out of crisis such as Libya had joined in the crude market. He said it was unfortunate that most of the oil producing countries were import- dependent.
Rabiu said for the local refineries, the nation could not get more than 15 million to 20 million litres of PMS out of them but could produce enough kerosene and DPK (diesel) if they operated at 90 percent installation.
