The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari has said the government is infusing between N140 billion to N150bn month to month to keep petrol cost at N162 per litre, from its genuine N256.
He stated this during a partner’s meeting coordinated by NNPC to examine how best to stop smuggling.
While commenting on the fuel value, he said, “On the off chance that we are to sell at the market today at the current exchange rate, we will sell the product at about N256 to a litre. What we sell today is N162, so the difference is at a cost to the nation.
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“The difference comes back to as much as N140bn to N150bn cost to the country monthly,” NAN quoted him.
He, however, said with the high volume of day by day consumption, the nation can’t support subsidy instalment.
He noted that smuggling across the borders expanded the everyday consumption of Premium Motor Soul (PMS) to 103 million litres per day in May.
However, the presentation of Operation White and involvement of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had helped the situation, Kyari stated.
“From the truck out the report from the PPPRA database, we have seen the breakdown of burden out normal move from 70m liters to 60m liters simply in one month; that implies we can do with under 70m, the equilibrium, I don’t have a clue where it goes to yet we know without a doubt that it’s anything but devoured in this country.
“In very recent data, we see what we really want at the beginning of May and June, there was a day, we loaded out about 103m litres of PMS within one day across the depots.”
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resource, Chief Timipre Sylva, said smuggling was not a business and would never be a business.
“When I first came in as minister, I was informed that the daily consumption in the country was around 60 to 62m litres a day, which to me sounded a little bit outrageous considering the number of cars we have on the road.
“Yet, some way or another, the figures I see today, have come down to around 52m litres,” he said.
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