Fuel subsidy probe: NNPC can't account for 65,000 barrels daily allocation

IT was revealed onMonday that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has no proper record of 65,000 barrels of daily crude allocation worth $9.8 billion.This was discoveredwhen the NNPC Managing Director, Mr Austin Oniwon, appeared beforemembers of the Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Appropriation and Finance probing the fuel subsidy financing.The crude allocation which has no record are part of the 445, 000 barrels allocated to the NNPC daily and are meant to be refined for domestic consumption.Oniwon told the committee that out of the 445, 000 barrels allocated to the corporation daily, it could only refine 170,000 barrels per day at the two functional refineries in Port-Harcourt and Kaduna, while 60,000 bpd is sent to the SIR Company in Cote d'Ivoire which has an installed capacity of 80, 000bpd.He added that another 90, 000 bpd was swapped for refining by Duke Refinery, an overseas subsidiary that is wholly owned by the NNPC and another 60,000 bpd is refined at the United Kingdom-based refinery; Travigora Refinery.He could not give any account for the balance of 65,000 bpd out of the total barrels of crude oil allocated to the corporation but denied allegations that unnamed private companies benefit from the allocation to the corporation.Oniwon explained that between 2006 and August, 2011, the NNPC received N2.157trillion as subsidy on petroleum products with N220billion outstanding payment for subsidy on kerosene.According to him, "subsidy by implication is very easy to abuse because you're carrying the risk on behalf of others and as a policy, it is not good for the economy."
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