The Federal Government has disclosed that Nigeria imports 25 million litres of petrol daily.
This was made known on Wednesday in Abuja as it was also revealed that consumption of petrol had declined to 50 million litres daily.
The Executive Director of Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Ogbugo Ukoha, who made the revelations, also said petrol importation became necessary to ensure that scarcity does not return to the downstream sector.
Ukoha said: “Let me speak a little bit about supply.
“All of us have experienced a yuletide free of any scarcity and let me just reconfirm that from year to year we saw an increase in the demand for PMS by 2021, 2022, up to 2023 just before the current administration came in.
“The daily PMS supply sufficiency was always more than 60 million, in fact averaging about 66 million a day for PMS.
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“And following Mr. President’s withdrawal of subsidy, the announcement on May 29, 2023, we immediately saw a steep decline in consumption and between then and as we speak, we’ve continued to do plus or minus 50 million.
“Of these 50 million litres average for each day, less than 50 percent of that is contributed by domestic refineries and so the shortfall in accordance with the PIA (Petroleum Industry Act) is sourced by way of imports.”
Ukoha further said none of the Oil Marketing Companies that owned refineries in the country had imported any PMS this year.
He said: “The other OMCs are the ones that are importing the shortfall, and if we did nothing to bridge that shortfall, we will have scarcity on our hands.
“And that’s something that the regulator is mindful to do: ensuring that there is sufficient supply of petroleum products across the country.”
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