The Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) Wednesday disclosed that it cost the country about $1.8billion per quarter to import fuel.
Chief Executive Officer (Upstream), Bello Rabiu, told journalists during a press briefing at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that it cost the country $600billion to import fuel every month.
"Spending on imports rely on two things: Volume and the price. As we speak today, a cargo of product of about 40 million liters will cause about 13 to 14 million dollars.
"And we need about 45 to 50 million liters to satisfy the country depending on the time and the condition of the country. So, if you assume that about 16 million dollars per day, it can also go up to 20 million dollars depending on the price.
"It means you need 20 million dollars multiplied by 90 days for a quarter. That is $1.8 billion. So, this amount is required to import the country's fuel requirement for one-quarter. Every month, we need $600 million to import fuel. So, we need $1.8 billion to import the country's requirement for one-quarter" he said.
Rabiu who led a management team of the Cooperation made the disclosure while giving an update on government's efforts to end the persistent fuel scarcity in the country.
He said the corporation plans to saturate the market with more petrol than Nigerian's can consume to end the scarcity adding that as at Yesterday (Wednesday) five vessels discharged products in various parts of the country.
Flanked by the Chief Operating Officer (Downstream), Henry Nkem-Obi; Chief Operating Officer (Refineries); Anibo Kragha and Group General Manager (Public Affairs), Garden Mohammed, Rabiu said five vessels discharged products in various parts of the country.
Private importers were also discharging at least 120million liters of their products to complement NNPC imports, he said adding that there was a delay in the circulation of the products across the country because they had to be trucked as the pipelines in the country were still not in good condition.
Rabiu said: "The plan going forward from today, we want to make sure that we give more than what is required in the whole country. The total requirement of the country is just about 1,300 trucks but our plan is to make at least 1,500 available everyday until this thing clears up.
"So, we want to make sure that we saturate the market in a very short time and I think you can see clearly now that Lagos is almost cleared and Abuja is getting better. Other places will follow."
He said 12 cargoes of fuel ordered by the corporation online were expected to be on Nigerian waters by next week to meet the demand and supply balance adding that the NNPC is also working to ensure that private importers who have approvals to import get foreign exchange cover to bring in the cargoes on time.
According to him, the corporation knows what each state needs and the demand would be met. "we just want to ensure this thing happen and quickly too," he said.
Apologising for the fuel scarcity on behalf of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu and the NNPC, Rabiu assured that this magnitude of scarcity would never repeat itself as the
Cooperation was now focusing on building its in-country storage capacity so that it would take minimum time to move products to depots in any part of the country. Efforts are also underway to ensure that the refineries and pipelines are put in order to achieve stability .
The CEO also noted that the Port Harcourt Refinery has started delivering about 5million liters a day enough for Port Harcourt and Bayelsa areas while Warri was close to adding another 2million liters.
He appealed to Nigerians to desist from panic buying as the products would now be available on a regular basis in all the filling stations around the country.
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