Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, says the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has incurred a cumulative loss of N85.5 billion in importing petrol and selling at the current retail price of N145 per litre.

Kachikwu said this on Thursday when he appeared before the national assembly joint committee on petroleum resources (downstream).

The minister said the price was fixed in the first quarter of 2016, when crude oil was selling for $49. He added that with crude price rising to $67 a barrel, the pump price may no longer be sustainable.

Kachikwu said the landing cost of PMS which was N133.28 per litre in 2016 is now N171 per litre, which has resulted into stoppage of importation of the product by independent marketers.

This, he said had made the NNPC to be the sole importer of the product.

The minister said as a result of the N26 difference per litre between the current landing cost of the product (N171) and pump price of N145, NNPC which had been singularly importing the product at the volume of 25 million litres per day since October last year.

“This has resulted in a daily loss of about N800-N900million, cumulatively reaching N85.5billion today, in just three months,” he said.

On his part, Maikanti Baru, general managing director of NNPC, said the fuel scarcity was caused by combination of factors ranging from diversion of the product from depots by tanker drivers to neighbouring countries where it sold between N300 to N400 per litre to outright hoarding of the product by unscrupulous marketers at home.

According to him, the NNPC had prior to the scarcity, had 1.9 billion litres in reserve, which was emptied as a result of panic buying arising from rumour earlier made on social media about price increase, the one day strike action embarked upon by PENGASSAN, hoarding and diversion by some dubious players in the sector.