The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari has said that the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari to security agencies to check the smuggling of petroleum products to neighboring countries has begun to yield result.
Kyari while speaking on Tuesday at the ‘Good morning Nigeria show’ of the Nigerian Television Authority said that the amount of petrol smuggled out of Nigeria has reduced by six million liters in the last three weeks.
In recent times, a huge chunk of the petroleum the NNPC pays for is being smuggled to neighboring countries where they are sold at higher prices.
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The development had made the NNPC to enter into collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Department of State Services, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and other relevant downstream and upstream stakeholders in the petroleum industry to curb the twin menace of petroleum products smuggling and crude oil theft.
Crude oil theft and smuggling of petroleum products are negatively impacting the nation’s economy.
Kyari said during the interview that while the NNPC supplies 60 million liters of PMS to the market, Nigeria’s petroleum products consumption is not up to that quantity.
He said, “Petroleum consumption in Nigeria is not up to 60 million litres per day, but we supply up to that,“We always plan with 60 million litres, because anytime we do below that, there is a crisis.”
“There are sharp practices which we are trying to control and an organised cross-border smuggling of petroleum, which is associated with the price of petroleum itself.”
The smuggling, the NNPC Boss noted, is exacerbated by the fact that Nigeria shares borders with countries who have no choice but to transport petroleum by road.
When borders were shut last year, the NNPC MD had said, consumption fell to 52 to 53 million litres per day.
And during the thick of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the number fell to about 42 million litres.
“If everything works well and consumption is limited to our country, we are dealing with about 42 million litres,” Kyari said.