The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency explains why the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation provided most of the volumes of petrol used in the country  

ON a daily basis, Nigerians consume an average of 51 million litres of petrol to fuel their cars and power their generating sets. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, said between 2016 and 2018, petrol consumption increased from 50 million litres in 2016 to 53 million in 2018.

The PPPRA, in a statement on its website, explained that the consumption figure was based on its daily petroleum products truck-out. It said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, NNPC, provided most of the volumes of petrol used in the country because oil marketing companies in 2017 stopped supplying products on account of unfavourable business terms.

“Based on PPPRA truck-out figures, the PMS (Petrol) national average daily supply for the year 2016 and 2017 was around 50 million litres while the estimated average for the year 2018 was about 53 million litres.”

The statement explained that the PPPRA wanted to clarify that it was not aware that another agency had taken over its duties of determining subsidy claims amongst others. According to the statement, the Petroleum Support Fund, PSF, Scheme which supports the country’s subsidy regime ended in December 2015, and there was no provision for subsidy in the national budget of the year 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Based on this development, PPPRA said it did not compute subsidy claims in the three years but instead administered the Price Modulation Mechanism, PMM, for the period of January to May 2016.

“Presently, the scheme managed by PPPRA since May 2016 is the Appropriate Pricing Framework, APF. Under this scheme, the agency regulates petroleum products supply and distribution through issuance of Quantity Notification, QN, and LAYCAN to NNPC and OMCs. It also monitors discharges at various facilities nationwide,” it noted.

The PPPRA explained that due to the challenges of petrol pricing in the fourth quarter of 2017, oil marketing companies withdrew from importation of petrol and NNPC being the supplier of last resort stepped in to bridge the supply gap, adding that it has since then continued to do same.

“According to NNPC, PMS import price differential resulting in under-recovery is being managed by the corporation in line with the act that establishes it. Most of the cargoes brought by NNPC are under the Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) contract which is not governed by the PSF regime.”

Meanwhile, NNPC in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for October 2018 revealed that the corporation supplied an average of 55.50 million litres of petrol per day, translating to a total of 1.66 billion litres in the month under review.

NNPC also raised an alarm over the increasing incidents of pipeline vandalism across the country. In October 2018, its pipeline network suffered a 42.9 percent increase in the incidents of vandalism compared to the previous month during the year. The breakdown showed that the corporation recorded 219 pipeline vandalised points in the month under review compared to 125 incidents it suffered in September of the same year.

The report stated that cases of vandalism of pipeline facilities were high along Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu axis, accounting for 81 (40 percent) and 39 (18 percent) vandalised points respectively. It revealed that among the breaches; four vandalised pipeline points failed to be welded and one point was ruptured.

– Jan. 18, 2018 @ 15:17 GMT |