Despite the renewed effort to ramp-up domestic production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in Nigeria’s quest for energy independence, data from the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has shown that petrol imports surged by 96 percent to 5.9 million litres in the month of March.
The imports according to the Authority’s fact sheet, increased from 3 million litres recorded in February. While domestic supplies dropped to 34.2 million litres from 36.5 million litres in February. This brought the total PMS supplied in March to 40.1 litres, far below the average daily supply of 52 million litres.
Dangote refinery accounted for the total domestic production in the period at 34.2 million litres, while the state owned refineries including: Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries remained shut down in the period.
According to the report, daily consumption also dropped from 56.9 litres in February to 47.3 litres in March.
On Automotive Gas Oil, the report showed a 59 percent decline in total daily supply from 24.8 million litres in February to 10.3 million litres in March. Of this total supply, 3.9 million litres were sourced from local refineries while 6.4 million litres were imported.
The report also indicated a drop in AGO consumption, from 20.3 million litres in February to 14.5 million litres in March.
On sectoral utilization of gas, the report showed that 0.485 Bscf/day was utilized by power sector, 0.601 Bscf/day was utilized for commercial purpose and 0.430 Bscf/day for industrial purposes.
