By Adedapo Adesanya
In what appears to be an imbalance in figures, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) on Thursday claimed that Nigerians consume about 66.89 million litres of petrol daily.
This was in an attempt to provide clarification on Nigeria’s actual fuel consumption figures, following varying figures making the rounds over the last couple of weeks.
This is in contrast to the 98 million litres announced by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and 68 million published by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
In a statement in Abuja, the downstream and midstream petroleum sector regulator clarified that the 62.9 million litres daily fuel supply figure it quoted in interaction with legislators was the 2021 consumption figure that was used to forecast revenues for 2022.
It declared that the actual daily fuel truck-out data are published on its website, adding that it would continue to provide transparent data as regards Nigeria’s fuel supply and distribution.
Specifically, the NMDPRA statement read: “The Federal Government Medium Term Expenditure and Revenue Framework (MTERF), which is a three-year forward-looking budgetary tool comprises contributions from various agencies. The authority and its legacy agencies annually provide truck-out forecasts for this planning purpose.
“The authority, during a recent interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, quoted 62.9 million litres as the 2022 baseline daily truck out projection. For clarity, the figure provided was used in 2021 solely to forecast the expected revenue for 2022 and does not in any way translate to the actual truck out volume for this year.
“In line with the NMDPRA mandate as provided in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to ensure transparency in the oil and gas industry, the Authority publishes on its website (www.nmdpra.gov.ng/daily-truckout) the actual daily truck out. As can be verified from the website, the actual daily truck out from 1st January 2022 to 31st July 2022 stands at 66.89 million litres.
“The authority assures the general public that it is committed to providing credible and transparent data on the supply and distribution of petroleum products.”
The NMDPRA position is coming on the heels of claims by Controller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Mr Hameed Ali, (retd), that the NNPC allowed the release of 98 million litres of petrol per day for local consumption instead of 60 million litres admitted by its own computation.
In response to the allegations by the NCS boss, the state oil company maintained that the average petrol supply in the country stood at 68 million litres per day.
The NNPC added that the total volume of petrol imported into the country between January and August 2022, was 16.46 billion litres, which translated to the 68 million litres daily supply.
Modupe Gbadeyanka