NNPC Stops Importation of Kerosene

By Dipo Olowookere

The importation of kerosene by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been stopped, Punch is reporting.

This has occurred for the past three months, the paper relied on information from NNPC’s latest financial and operations report.

The NNPC report disclosed that it last imported kerosene into Nigeria under the Direct-Sale Direct-Purchase/Offshore Processing Agreement in May 2016, disclosing further that in the months of June, July and August this year, it did not get a single litre of the commodity under the DSDP/OPA.

However, following this development, the report indicated that the corporation produced DPK from the country’s refineries.

It would be recalled that in February, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, announced the replacement of the crude swap arrangement with what he called the Direct-Sale Direct-Purchase framework, which took off in April.

The DSDP was adopted to replace the crude swap initiative and the offshore processing arrangement in a bid to entrench transparency in the crude oil for product transaction by the country’s national oil firm.

Documents sighted by Punch at the Abuja headquarters of the NNPC showed that by implementing the DSDP, Nigeria was able to save $336.4 million (N102.6 billion at the official exchange rate of N305 to $1) between April and July 2016.

But the latest report of the corporation showed that while the national oil firm continued the DSDP framework for the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, it discontinued the importation of DPK through the channel.

For June, July and August, the NNPC was supplied 1.18 billion, 798.33 million and 901.35 million litres of PMS, respectively, but it got no single drop of DPK during these months via the DSDP/OPA scheme.

“In August 2016, 901.35 million litres of white products were supplied into the country through the DSDP arrangement, while 798.33 million litres were supplied in the month of July 2016; only PMS (was) supplied through the DSDP in the months of July and August 2016,” the report stated.

The report, however, did not state if the NNPC was importing kerosene through other channels and officials of the firm could not confirm this on Wednesday.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr Garba-Deen Mohammed, told Punch that he would find out if the firm had stopped kerosene importation, particularly through the DSDP channel.

He promised to get back after making his findings, but had yet do so as of the time of filing this report.