NNPC Says 54m Litres of Petrol Leaves Depot Daily, No Idea National Consumption

• It is Impossible to Know Daily Consumption of Petrol Says NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it does not know exactly the quantity of petrol consumed in the nation daily due to the activity of smugglers.

This was disclosed by the Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, at an interactive hearing organised by Joint Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream) held on Tuesday.

He said, “We don’t know how much petroleum products we consume daily in this country, but we know how much of the product that is taken out of depot.

“This year, around 54 million litres of petroleum products are evacuated from the depot daily, but the consumption is somewhere below that.

“The NNPC has no knowledge of the amount of products that are transported through Nigeria’s borders to neighbouring countries.

“It is impossible to know; nobody declares it, and therefore as it crosses, it goes.”

On refineries, he said the corporation intensionally shut down its three operating refineries for two reasons.

He said, “One is business decision. They are in such a condition that we can only extract 70 to 80 per cent of the value of crude. It is needless to operate it when you know you will lose 20 per cent of the value.

“Second is that we cannot even guarantee crude oil supply to these lines.

“From Excravos to Warri and then to Kaduna; Bonny to Okrika, the pipelines are very old. Some are 30 to 40 years old and have not been replaced.”

Kyari added, “We have not done proper maintenance in the last 30 years, and the cumulative effect is that even when you start it today, it cannot be run optimally.

“To replace pipeline from Excravos to Kaduna, you need at least $2bn and we don’t have that kind of money.”