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Economist and energy expert Kelvin Emmanuel has raised concerns over the continued importation of fuel into Nigeria despite claims that the country’s refineries are operational.
With an ongoing legal dispute between Dangote and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Emmanuel called for urgent government intervention. He insisted that the President should overhaul NNPC by firing its entire management and board, as well as replacing the midstream and downstream regulator management.
“NNPC needs a complete overhaul. The President needs to fire the entire management and board, replace them with competent leadership, and restructure the organisation. The vertical monopoly NNPC runs is depriving the federal government of revenues that should be funding the budget and improving the lives of Nigerians,” He said.
He further criticised NNPC for its underperformance in crude oil lifting, revealing that from 2019 till date, the company has structured $14 billion in forex transactions while committing over 300 million barrels of Nigeria’s crude to repaying international creditors. Contrary to government claims of producing 1.7 million barrels per day, he argued that Nigeria is actually producing 1.53 million barrels per day, with less than 200,000 barrels available to supply Dangote Refinery.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE NEWS on Saturday, Emmanuel questioned the transparency of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its decision-making process regarding fuel importation.
He noted that since October 2024, around 4.5 billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) had been imported into Nigeria. In February alone, between the 1st and 12th, NNPC imported 213.2 million litres, contrary to the reported 200 million litres, bringing the total for the first 12 days of the month to approximately 327 million litres.
“It begets the question that how do you claim that you have Eleme working, Warri working, Kaduna is going to come on stream 110 thousand barrel processing capacity per day, and you are still importing PMS into Nigeria if the refineries you claim are working are working,” he said.
“When you consider the fact, for example, that a lot of the petrol imported into Nigeria, mid-grade petrol with sulphur level of over 750, some of them are over 1,000 ppm and when you burn them, the ash content is usually very black, you don’t get white smoke, which is what you are supposed to get if you’re bringing in petrol with very high octane rating and a proper vapour pressure and sulphur level which is supposed to be 50ppm,” he added.
Addressing concerns over transparency, Emmanuel stated that low-quality petrol is being imported into Nigeria at cheap prices without a forensic audit to determine its grade and pricing.
“There has been no process audit, forensic audit into the grade of petrol and the price of petrol because petrol runs on a global plat system and different grades of petrol based on the octane and sulphur level have different prices… and the regulator NNDPR which is supposed to be involved and enforce this pricing framework and mechanisms as stated in Petroleum Industry of Section 205 and 206 and some other areas of the PI is not doing its job,” he said.
Emmanuel also highlighted that Dangote Refinery has the capacity to supply the entire Nigerian market with PMS, diesel, and Jet A1 at full capacity, achieving significantly higher yields than NNPC. He argued that the government’s crude oil swaps and vendor financing programmes deny Nigeria the revenues needed to finance its budget.
“You can see in 2025, the assumptions, 15.8 trillion will go into debt servicing. The government plans to borrow 13 trillion naira, I see some people say the naira has been appreciating and gaining because of macroeconomic reform and that cannot be further from the truth because I can tell you categorically that the gains you’ve seen in the naira is caused by hedge funds who placed bets recently who went long on the naira against the dollar in a couple of billions of dollars, its speculation, it has nothing to do with fundamentals,” he said.
On the question of whether Dangote Refinery could meet Nigeria’s fuel demands, Emmanuel stated that it is already producing over 42 million litres of PMS daily, while Nigeria’s actual consumption is around 32 million litres per day.
“If the government claims otherwise, let them provide empirical evidence to prove that they don’t,” he said.
He pointed out that Saudi Aramco recently ordered 130 million litres of Jet A1 from Dangote Refinery, underscoring the global recognition of its product quality.
“That Saudi Aramco ordered 130 million litres of EN950 Jet A1 to trade around the world, it speaks to the quality… Dangote is the only refinery in Nigeria that has products that are benchmarked and accepted by regulators all over the world,” he stated.
He argued that NNPC should exit the refining and petrol station business, stating, “The vertical monopoly NNPC runs simply means that they are taking revenues from upstream which belongs to the government of Nigeria. It takes revenues from upstream and it subsidises revenues, mainstream and downstream operations and it has little or nothing to remit to the federal government of Nigeria to fund its budget, which is actually affecting the lives of Nigerians.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
The post Kelvin Emmanuel: NNPC Has Seriously Underperformed, Needs a Complete Overhaul appeared first on Arise News.
