The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) deductions from crude oil sales revenue for petrol subsidies in the first three months of 2018 alone exceeded the deductions for the whole of 2017, a report by the World Bank has revealed.
Specifically, the Bank in report titled: “Nigeria Bi-annual Economic Update for Fall 2018,” disclosed that while the deductions for the 2017 full year totalled N107.3 billion, that for January to March 2018 alone, was a total of N139.3 billion. The report pointed out that landing and transportation costs for imported petrol continue to be higher than the capped domestic pump price, “giving rise to cost under-recoveries by the NNPC.”
Independent oil marketers have stopped importing petrol since 2016 for this reason. “The volume of petrol imported by NNPC in 2018 has been higher than in any other year. During the first three months of 2018, NNPC imported more than half of what it had imported in the whole of 2016. “The need to shore up fuel inventories may have contributed to this, but there have also been widely reported cases of fuel smuggling to neighbouring countries where pump prices are higher than the subsidised price in Nigeria,” it stated.
Source: THIS DAY