To address this significant gap, the country relies on the importation of refined petroleum products, as current consumption stands at 50 million litres of petrol per day.
Farouk Ahmed, the Chief Executive of NMDPRA, made this announcement during a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday. He highlighted that the authority, functioning under the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, has been issuing import licenses, stressing that without these imports, a fuel shortage would have occurred.
In 2024, two state-owned refineries—the Port Harcourt refinery with a capacity of 210,000 barrels per day and the Warri refinery at 125,000 bpd—resumed operations after years of inactivity. Earlier this year, the 650,000 bpd Dangote refinery also began operations, much to the satisfaction of Nigerians.
While officials from these refineries have asserted that they are operating at high production levels to meet local demand, Ahmed, represented by Ogbugo Ukoha, the Executive Director of Distribution System, Storage, and Retailing Infrastructure, pointed out that the country remains significantly reliant on petrol imports, with over 50 percent sourced from abroad.
This reliance persists even as national consumption has decreased from an average of 66 million litres per day to 50 million following the removal of the petrol subsidy. Notably, none of the refinery owners have imported petroleum products this year.
Ukoha said, “Let me speak a little bit about supply.”
We all had a holiday season without any fuel shortages this year. Just to reiterate, we've seen a steady rise in the demand for PMS from 2021 through 2023, right before the current government took over. The daily supply of PMS was consistently over 60 million liters.
On average, we were looking at about 66 million liters a day for PMS. But after the President announced the subsidy removal on May 29, 2023, we noticed a sharp drop in consumption. Since then, we've been hovering around 50 million liters daily. Out of that, less than half comes from our local refineries, so the rest is covered by imports due to the shortfall indicated by the PIA.
Ukoha pointed out that none of the local refineries have brought in any petroleum products this year. Reports have shown that the state-owned oil company’s PMS burns quicker than what Dangote Refinery produces.
He added that none of the oil marketing companies that own refineries in the country have imported any PMS this year. The other OMCs are the ones filling in the gaps. If we don’t take action to address this shortfall, we could face shortages. The regulator is aware of this and is working to ensure there's enough supply of petroleum products nationwide. To clarify, local refineries are contributing less than 50% of what we need daily between January and February 2025, and the rest is being sourced through imports.
“Even though none of the OMCs that own the local refineries have imported PMS this year, we are also minded that if we find ourselves in the situation that the PIA described where you have to resort to the supplier of last resort, we will go to them and require them to bridge the gap. Never mind the fact that every OMC has a right to apply to the authority.”
The NMDPRA has confirmed that all petroleum products brought into the country this year meet quality standards.
They emphasize that every product must align with the specifications set by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria and the Petroleum Industry Act 2021.
The authority strictly prohibits the distribution of any subpar products. Ukoha pointed out that there have been false claims circulating on social media regarding product quality.
He added, “People who dabble within the social media space must be reminded that it is disrespectful if you imagine that Nigerians are gullible.”