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The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it has spent $5.8 billion to import 9.8 million metric tonnes of petrol since late last year, to combat the fuel crisis.
NNPC Group Managing Director, Maikanti Baru, disclosed this at a public hearing held by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts in Abuja, yesterday, and added that the corporation had to carry out massive importation after private fuel marketing companies abandoned imports because of the high landing cost of petrol, according to TheCable, an online newspaper.
This, said Baru, made cost recovery and profitability difficult, owing to the regulated price regime.
“This is in fulfilment of (NNPC’s) statutory role of supplier of last resort, to ensure that Nigerians do not suffer as a result of product unavailability,” a statement from the corporation quoted Baru as saying.
The NNPC boss, however, pointed out that cross-border smuggling, owing to price disparity between Nigeria and neighbouring countries where a litre of petrol sells above N350 per litre, as well as logistic issues in trucking products to different locations across the country remained serious challenges in the quest for fuel queue-free situation in the country. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producing country with over 2 million barrels per day of output, imports more than 85 percent needs of its petrol needs because of inadequate local refining.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, also said, yesterday, that government is working on plans to bring in private sector investment in the repair and management of the refineries and get them up to about 90 percent of capacity.
“That process is almost completed now, probably in a matter of weeks, we will be announcing the winners. We want to get the private sector to be major investors in building new refineries,” said Kachikwu.
