Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly known as petrol sufficiency days and stock figures are receding.
Whereas the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) used to boast about 30 to 40- day stock sufficiency and about 2 billion metres, the record has dipped to 24.02-day sufficiency and about 1,345,338,930 litres stock of petrol.
This was evident in a document titled: “Petroleum Products Stock & Days Sufficiency Report 27th January 2022,” which obtained from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) on Tuesday.
Recall that while petrol consumers embarked on panic buying in the countdown to the last Christmas and New Year festivals, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Malam Garba Deen Muhammad on 14th December 2021 stated NNPC raised its reserves from 1.7billion litres to 2 billion litres.
He said: “Indeed, our stock has risen from a reserve of 1.7 billion litres to over two billion litres within the last one month.”
Nigeria consumes between 54 million to 60 million petrol daily.
As petrol scarcity hit the country in the last one week following the anxiety that the Federal Government would remove the subsidy, most of the retail outlets shut down.
Despite the subsequent announcement that the government has shelved the plan to stop the subsidy regime, the supply of the product was still a far cry from the demand for it.
Consequently, the NNPC insisted that the product was sufficiently available.
It allayed the fears, urging the public to desist from panic buying.
The scarcity has however lingered in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with black marketers flooding major highways with the product in jerry cans.
According to the document that The Nation obtained, the stock day sufficiency receded from 26.78 days on 26th January to 24.02 days sufficiency on 27th January 2022.
The data noted that as of 27th January 2022, there was total in-land stock of 788,968,309 litres, 213,917,185 litres as total jetty (at berth) stock.
The report added that there was 342,453,436 litres of total marine stock. The total reserve for the day was 1,345,338,930 litres.
The previous day, which was 26th January 2022, the reserve was 1,499,806,953 being 26.78 days stock sufficiency.
The report for that day recalled that the previous day, 25th January 2022, the stock sufficiency was 25.47 days.
