National Bureau of Statistics report has shown that since President Bola Tinubu’s removed fuel subsidies in June which has resulted in a monthly reduction in the nation’s gasoline imports by around 1 billion liters.
According to the NBS statistics, the nation imported 2.09 liters of petroleum in January 2023 and 1.99 billion liters in February of the same year.
The previous year’s figures were 2.29 billion liters in March, 1.91 billion liters in April, and 2.01 billion liters in May.
Remember that on May 29, Tinubu eliminated the Premium Motor Spirit subsidy, which had a big impact on the product’s imports the following month.
In June, the first month after the subsidies ended, our reporter saw a decrease in the amount of PMS imported, to 1.64 billion liters.
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The downward slope got deeper in July when the import was reduced to 1.45 billion litres.
In August, petrol imported into the country was down to 1.09 billion, a reduction of over 1 billion litres year-on-year from the 2.23 billion litres imported in August 2022.
The NBS report showed that Nigeria did not produce a litre of PMS locally in 2021, 2022, and in the first half of 2023.
However, diesel and kerosene were produced locally during that period, due to a lack of functioning oil refineries.
Read Also: Nigeria Imported 11.94 Billion Liters Of Petrol In First Half 2023-NBS
In its key highlights for the Petroleum Products Distribution Statistics Half Year 2023, the NBS said in H12023, PMS truck out stood at 11.48 billion litres, indicating a 5.83 per cent decrease when compared to 12.19 billion litres recorded in the first half of 2022.
Also, 26.07m litres of kerosene were locally produced compared to 22.33m litres in the first half of 2022.
For Automotive Gas Oil (diesel), 55.48m litres were produced in the first half of 2023, higher relative to 50.19m litres reported in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Though the 11.94 billion litres of PMS imported in H12023 was higher compared to 11.56 billion litres in H12022, the drop in June, July and August testified to the effect of the subsidy removal as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company remains the only importer of fuel at the moment.
