The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the country has recorded about $48 million (or N17 billion) loss to oil theft this year alone based on the benchmark oil price exchange rate of N360/$1.
The corporation's Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari, made this disclosure at an interactive hearing on 'Exiting Petroleum Subsidy: Ensuring Self-Sufficiency in Domestic Refining of Petroleum Products' by the Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream).
Speaking on the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) being consumed daily in the country, the GMD said the corporation had no knowledge of the daily consumption of petroleum products or volume being
He clarified: "We don't know how much petroleum we consume daily in this country, but we know how much of product is taken out of depots."
On the state of the country's refineries, Kyari said NNPC "deliberately" shut down the Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt refineries for two reasons, namely the low value of extracted or refined products and inability of the corporation to guarantee crude oil supply to these lines.
Speaking further on why the poor state of the refineries, Kyari said the corporation spent N64 billion to resuscitate Kaduna refinery without achieving any meaningful result.
