Petrol consumption increases as smuggling soars

Abiola Seun

Petrol consumption in Nigeria leaped by 340 million litres within a space of one month, figures released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation showed.

This could be fueled by smuggling of the product to neighboring countries by notorious smugglers.

Providing data contained in its March 2021 financial and operations report, the oil firm said 1.75 billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, was consumed in March 2021.

Findings by our correspondent from the corporation’s earlier report showed that the consumption in February 2021 was 1.41 billion litres.
This implies that within the space of February and March this year, petrol consumption across the country jumped by 340 million litres.
NNPC said its March 2021 report indicated that the total revenue generated from the sale of white products for the period of March 2020 to March 2021 stood at N2.13tn, where petrol contributed about 99.24 per cent of the total sales with a value of N2.11tn.

It noted that its downstream subsidiary, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, recorded N234.63bn revenue from the sale of white products in the month of March 2021 alone.