Petrol subsidy gulped N101.65bn in first three months- NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) records have revealed that petrol subsidy gulped N101.65bn in the first three months of the year.

The national oil corporation, however, described the subsidy spending as under-recovery.

It had consistently argued that only the National Assembly was empowered to approve petrol subsidy, despite the fact that NNPC’s monthly under-recoveries were due to subsidy on petrol.

An analysis of the latest report on Sunday showed that the corporation spent N43.31bn as subsidy on petrol in January this year.

In February, it incurred N20.68bn as under-recovery, while in March the oil firm spent N37.66bn as subsidy.

Petrol subsidy was, however, halted in March 2020 by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency following the crash in global crude oil prices.

The crash in crude oil price, according to the PPPRA, gave rise to the end of the petrol subsidy, as the agency stated that the petrol price would be adjusted in accordance with global oil prices.

The PPPRA has adjusted petrol price about three times since after the first adjustment in March this year.

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The NNPC report further stated that the corporation paid N434.25bn to the Federation Account Allocation Committee during the quarter under review.

It stated that in January, a total of N138.57bn was remitted to FAAC, while the committee received N148.53bn from the corporation in February 2020.

The NNPC said it paid N147.15bn to FAAC in March this year.

This came as the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, disclosed during a television interview monitored in Abuja that in the next two weeks, the ministry would send the revised Petroleum Industry Bill to the National Assembly.

This, according to Sylva, was to ensure that work would commence on the bill in full.

The Petroleum Minister further disclosed during the interview that the recently inaugurated Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline and the Nigeria LNG  Train-7 projects were currently valued at about $50bn.