The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) had put Nigeria’s daily consumption of premium motor spirit (PMS) at 66 million litres.
In a statement by the Authority in Abuja, yesterday, the midstream and downstream regulatory body said the clarification became necessary in the wake of figures emanating from different agencies and other stakeholders.
NMDPRA said it relies on relevant sections of the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, which requires the Authority to publish the figures on its website.
It added: “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 the actual daily truck-out. From 1st January to 31 July 2022, the daily truck-out stands at 66 million litres.”
It stressed that there is a need to provide context for the media reports on the 2022 average daily truck out of PMS.
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 institutions provide yearly truck-out forecasts for this planning purpose.
During an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, the Authority quoted 62.9 million litres as the 2022 baseline daily truck out projection based on the 2021 actual daily truck out volume of 61.9 million litres.
For clarity, the Authority said the figure provided was used solely to forecast the expected revenue for 2022 and does not in any way translate to the actual truck out volume for this year.
It assured the general public that it is committed to providing credible and transparent data on the supply and distribution of petroleum products.
Appearing before the same committee, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd) disputed the claim by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited that the country consumes about 60 million litres of premium motor spirit, PMS daily, saying the computation is faulty and unbelievable.
The Customs boss queried why the NNPC Ltd would permit the lifting of about 98 million litres from the depot daily if the country only needs 60 million per day.
Ali dismissed claims that the smuggling of PMS was responsible for the huge sums of money expended by the government on subsidies.
“I have always argued this with NNPC. If we are consuming 60 million litres of petrol per day by their computation, why in the world would you allow the lifting of 98 million litres per day?” he queried.
The Customs CG insisted that the computation by NNPC is not believable, adding that daily consumptions differ.
“That computation, to me, is not believable, because scientifically you cannot tell me that if I fill my tank today, tomorrow I will fill my tank with the same quantity of fuel. And if I’m running a petrol station today, if I go to Minna depot and lift, and I’m taking to Kaduna, I may reach Kaduna in the evening and offload that product; there’s no way I could have sold that petrol for you to account for the expense.
NNPC insisted that what was computed was average over a specific period.
It added that the daily consumption is calculated using daily, weekly and monthly consumption to arrive at the figures, saying the calculations are empirically based on truck-out that is supervised by relevant government agencies.