Petroleum Ministry, DPR Differ on Nigeria’s Daily Fuel Consumption

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) have disagreed on how many litres of the products Nigerians utilise daily.

While the latest figures from the DPR yesterday indicated that the country consume 38.2 million litres daily, the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, said in a chat a few days ago, that Nigeria’s daily consumption stood at 52 million, with a difference of 14.2 million litres.

Three months ago, the ministry launched the “Operation White” project which it said was geared towards transparency and accountability of petroleum product supply and distribution in Nigeria. The initiative was expected to deepen the drive for transparency in the downstream operations.

But while Sylva announced that part of the achievement of the ministry in the last few months, was the reduction of consumption from a whopping 60 million to 52 million daily consumption, updated numbers from the DPR placed the number at 38.2 million.
Speaking on the matter, the minister ascribed the reduction in consumption to the project launched by the ministry, explaining that the decrease was achieved within a short time.

Sylva said: “To curb crude oil theft and product smuggling across our border, a lot has been done. NNPC launched ‘project white’ which successfully, within a very short time, brought down our daily consumption numbers from 62 million or over 60 million to about 52 million per day, a very significant reduction indeed.

“DPR also launched the crude oil lifting and tracking system (cot)which tracks all crude oil being exported from Nigeria,” he added
However, the DPR led by Mr. Sarki Auwalu, said with its own calculation, Nigeria’s estimated total consumption was 38.2 million, adding that the country currently has about one billion litres in stock to last about 29 days.

According to the updated figures obtained on Sunday: “As at 26th of May 2020, the cumulative depot stock of PMS (petrol), the depots was 1,096, 283, 694 litres (combined PMS stock owned by PPMC, Major and Independent Marketers).

“This is vis-à-vis 1,092, 185,42 litres on 25th May 2020, indicating a decrease of depot PMS stock due to vessel discharges and truck out activities respectively at the depots.”
It added that: “Applying the estimated daily national demand of 38,200,000 (thirty-eight million two hundred thousand) litres, available depot of PMS stock of 1,001, 776,714 litres is sufficient for 29 days.”

Titled, “National Fuel Situation Report”, the DPR said that Lagos zone had the highest stock with 526,321,545 litres in 24 depots, while Warri zone followed with 217,285, 169 litres in 12 depots.

Calabar/Eket zone had a stock of 87,616,000 litres in five depots, Port Harcourt had 115,542,000 in all its seven depots while Owerri and Kaduna had 29,752,000 and 25,260,000 respectively, in their storage facilities.