Amid the never-ending fuel shortage that has been affecting socio-economic activities across the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revealed that Nigeria spent a total of $12.44 billion importing petroleum products between January and October. of 2022.
The CBN also stated that the country’s federation gross revenue, which amounted to N1,178,640 million in the period under review, exceeded the September 2022 level by 7.0 per cent, but below the N1 target. 580,340 million by 25.4 percent.
This is contained in the main bank’s October 2022 Economic Report published on its website.
The report revealed that the importation of petroleum products gobbled up $1.24 billion in October and $3.73 billion and $3.26 billion in the third quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2022, respectively.
A look at the bank’s economic report for the first quarter (Q1) of 2022 showed that $4.21 billion was spent on importing petroleum products.
This means that the country spent a total of $12.44 billion on oil imports in the first 10 months of 2022.
Analysts who spoke to reporters said that although Nigeria was one of Africa’s largest crude oil producers, its inability to revitalize its four refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd) and process the oil efficiently meant that the country would continue to import petroleum derivatives.
Therefore, the figure is closely related to the fact that the country was highly dependent on the importation of petroleum products in the period under review.
During the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee in 2022, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele revealed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 caused a significant increase in oil prices, and Nigeria was unable to fully benefit from the situation. as it spends huge amounts on imported petroleum products annually.
The bank’s 2022 economic report said; “Higher import bills, particularly for petroleum products, coupled with rising world prices, pushed merchandise imports north.
Consequently, aggregate imports rose 34.9 percent to $4.64 billion, from $3.44 billion the previous month.
The increase in imports was driven by increased imports of petroleum products to $1.24 billion, from $0.12 billion in September 2022, to close the domestic supply gap.
Similarly, non-oil imports rose 2.5 percent to $3.41 billion, from $3.32 billion the previous month.
In terms of participation, non-oil imports accounted for 73.4 percent, while oil imports accounted for 26.6 percent of the total.
Provisional data revealed that merchandise imports fell 8.9% to $11.36 billion in the third quarter of 2022, compared with $12.48 billion in the previous quarter.
The development was observed, mainly, in the import of non-oil products, which decreased by 17.3 percent to $7.63 billion, from $9.22 billion.
By contrast, imports of petroleum products rose 14.6 percent to $3.73 billion from $3.26 billion.
The increase in the import of petroleum products was to cover the shortage of internal supply in the period.
The share of non-oil imports remained dominant, accounting for 67.2 percent of the total, while petroleum products made up the remainder of 32.9 percent.