Three firms import fuel as Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption drops by 35%

Three firms import fuel as Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption drops by 35%

Three out of 56 companies granted licences to import fuel have landed cargoes of the product in Nigeria.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said this.

The Chief Executive of the NMDPRA, Ahmed Farouk, who disclosed this during a stakeholders meeting with oil and gas downstream operators in Lagos, said seven of the 56 firms had already made commitment to import.

This is coming as Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption dropped from 65 million litres per day to 46.38 million litres after the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.

The figure represented 35 per cent reduction compared to the pre-subsidy removal era.

Farouk gave the names of the three companies importing fuel, apart from the NNPCL as Prudent Energy, AY Ashafa and Emadeb.

He added, “11plc and others are also indicating interest to import in August and September.”

“This is just to encourage them to import so that they can compete with NNPC in the market because the market is open for all to compete and we want to encourage all the marketing companies to come in and continue their normal businesses in this sector,” he said.

Farouk also said, “In January, it was 62 million per litre; February, 62 million per litre; March, 71.4 million per litre; April, 67.7 million per litre; May 66.6 million per litre; June, 49. 5 million per litre and July, 46.3 million per litres.”

The NMDPRA boss said that the essence of the meeting was to review the downstream sector after the subsidy removal and to thank marketers who had taken the offer to import petrol.