According to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the elimination of subsidies in June caused gasoline consumption to drop to 46.38 million liters per day.
This information was revealed by Farouk Ahmed, the NMDPRA’s chief executive officer, on Monday in Lagos at a meeting with stakeholders and downstream oil and gas firms.
He said that the statistic represented a reduction of 35% from the 65 million litres per day on average before gasoline subsidies were removed.
“The current daily consumption has drastically reduced as against 65 million litres which had been the daily consumption before subsidy removal,” he said.
“In January, it was 62 million litres per day; February, 62 million litres per day; March, 71.4 million litres per day; April, 67.7 million litres per day; May 66.6 million litres per day; June, 49. 5 million litres per day; and July, 46.3 million litres per day.”
Ahmed said while over 56 companies applied for import licences, only 10 made a commitment to bring in the product.
He said three marketers — Emadeb Energy, A.Y Shafa and Prudent Energy — have imported petrol into the country.
He added that other companies, including 11 Plc, have indicated interest in importing petrol in August and September.
“The era of subsidy payment is gone, we encourage all marketers who are interested in importing petrol to apply for licence,” he said.
“The meeting is to encourage marketers to import, so that there will be availability of petrol at every nook and cranny of the nation.
“The marketers have the choice to fix their price, because it is a free market where there will be competition.
“It is no longer Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited dominating the market, there will be other players to compete with NNPC.
“We do not want any dominant player in the market, that was why we liberalised the market for everybody to play.”
According to Ahmed, the authority is working with the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to stop marketers from taking advantage of consumers.