The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is already in talks with the Government of Niger Republic to establish a retail outlet in the neighbouring country, says its Group Managing Director Mele Kyari.

Mr Kyari said this is with a view to curb smuggling of petroleum products across Nigeria’s land borders.

Mr Kyari, who made this known at the 2022 to 2024 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, did not state whether similar plans were were in the offing for other countries who share borders with Nigeria.

Nonetheless, the NNPC boss argued that the national fuel consumption per day may not be above 60 million litres as being speculated, noting that anytime NNPC supplies less than that, there would be a problem.

He also said that President Muhammadu Buhari had personally directed him to take the step that would curtail cross-border smuggling, while also admitting the challenges posed by land borders aids activities of smugglers.

The GMD said that those who took crude oil across the border would not sell at the official price.

Mr Kyari said that there was an ongoing initiative to electronically monitor petrol distribution across the country. He said an electronic monitor would be put on tanks and fuel stations to monitor them.

He stated that with the electronic monitoring, every truck carrying fuel would be visible as they discharged their load and all the fuel stations would be seen as they discharged.

The NNPC boss stated that the country may not exit the fuel subsidy regime in 2022, but stressed that it would in 2023 when the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) may have been fully activated.

Meanwhile, the NNPC GMD says that the decision of the NNPC to be on the board of the Dangote refinery was a calculated attempt, adding that as of today Nigeria does not have strategic storage.

“We are taking interest in Dangote refinery and up till now he does not want us to take 50 per cent equity and it was structured on the fact that he must buy 3,000 barrels of crude oil from us per day,” he stated.

He said that Mr Dangote had a choice to buy crude oil from anywhere in the world but we insisted that he must buy from the country, stressing that it was a good deal the NNPC was proud to broker.

Mr Kyari said that contrary to insinuation, the NNPC had not abandoned the country’s refineries and it was not about taking a 500 million-dollar loan to repair them.

He added that none of the country’s refineries had undergone full-scale rehabilitation since 2000.