Nigeria’s state owned oil firm, The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced that it has enough petrol in Stock to last for 36 days, enough to “wet the country” as NAN reports.
According to its Group General Manager, Dr Maikanti Baru who was speaking during a courtesy visit by the management of the New Telegraph newspaper in Abuja, the NNPC will continue to intervene in the supply of deregulated petroleum products like diesel, jet fuel, kerosene and cooking gas to ensure supply sufficiency.
“We have consistently brought in between 30, 000 to 45, 000 metric tons of diesel on the average every week which is more than what we need to augment the required supply demand nationwide. We have also intervened in the supply of ATK and also ensured 20 days sufficiency,”
Why is this important?
To be fair, since the FG increased the price of petrol in May 2016, fuel queues have largely disappeared. The government has been able to manage fuel importation and availability in the country to such as extent that fuel price increase across the country has been largely contained.
It should also help to quell the fear among marketers and consumers that a product scarcity exist as landing cost is now higher than the approved N140 ceiling. Another thing to note is that, the NNPC is probably now subsidizing petrol. It’s November financial report showed its petrol division posted billions in losses.