The Group Chief Executive of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari has disclosed that landing cost of premium motor spirit (PMS) popularly called petrol has risen to N315/litre since recently, thus pushing subsidy cost to N202/litre.
He said “Today, by law and the provisions of the Appropriation Act, there is a subsidy on the supply of petroleum products, particularly PMS imports into our country. In current data terms, three days ago, the landing cost was around N315/litre.
“Our customers are here; we are transferring to each of them at N113/litre. That means there is a difference of close to N202 for every litre of PMS we import into this country. In computation, N202 multiplied by 66.5 million litres, multiplied by 30 will give you over N400bn of subsidy every month,” Kyari had observed.
Business Hilights recalls that since January till date, the cost of crude oil has revolved around $83/barrel, while the official exchange rate has been about N460/$. Crude oil price and foreign exchange rate are the major determinants of refined petroleum products’ cost, according to operators.
However, going by NNPCL’s latest fuel consumption figure of 79.83 million litres daily, and a subsidy of about N202/litre, it implies that the oil company would be spending an estimated N483.8bn to subsidise the commodity monthly.
NNPCL is the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria and has maintained this for several years. Other marketers of the commodity stopped its imports due to the difficulty in accessing foreign exchange required for PMS purchase.
