Following the incessant power outage witnessed by electricity consumers across the country, the demand for Premium Motor Spirit has increased from 40 million litres to 51.8 million litres, representing a 30 per cent increase in demand daily.
The rise in PMS demand, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, was attributed to electricity shortages. And despite a national peak demand of 19,100MW, supply had remained at appalling levels of below 4,000MW.
The NBS observed that many homes and companies in Nigeria relied on petroleum products, PMS and diesel, to power their generators due to the shortfall in electricity supply.
As the demand for petrol increased, some filling stations, which hitherto sold the product at between N138 and N142 per litre, below the official pump price of N145 in Lagos, have since increased price.
Although, the Federal Government has promised to increase electricity output to a minimum of 10,000MW before the end of 2016, the country was only able to attain a peak supply of 5,074.7MW in February last year which lasted for less than an hour.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, however, said that about 1.699MW would be added to the country’s generation capacity, when the abandoned power projects are completed.
Giving more details into the incremental power programme, Fashola listed the projects to be completed this year to include: 215MW Kaduna Power; 40MW Kashimbilla Power; 40MW Gurara 1 Power; 29MW Dodin Kowa Power; 10MW Katsina Power; 1,125MW Solar projects and the 240MW Emergency Power Project for Afam.
The Chairman, Petroleum Downstream Sector Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Ken Abazie, put the average daily consumption of PMS at about 45 million litres.
He noted that the consumption initially crashed to 25 million litres, when the price of petrol was increased to N145 per litre by the Federal Government.
“It was an immediate reaction to the price increase, and this gave government some kind of relief because the pressure on importation also reduced.
But, progressively, people adjusted; people began to accommodate the rise in energy cost to their daily cost. So, this made the daily consumption to begin to rise,” he said.
Senior Vice President, Centre for Values in Leadership, Mr. Rasheed Adegbenro, argued that Nigeria couldn’t be industrialised without regular electricity supply, and as such, could not be competitive even in the next 20 years, with the level of electricity supply in the country.
He said, “If you have television, refrigerator and air conditioner at home, you are consuming the energy of 100 people. There is no way we can run industrialisation on a per capita consumption of 13 watts.
“Also, the telecommunication companies are struggling with providing self-generated power for their transmission networks. When they realised there was no power after acquiring the assets, they quickly mobilised funds from international financiers to remain in business.
“Discos and Gencos are challenged, because the money is not there. Those who took money from the banks cannot pay back and the banks are not ready to release more funds for the electricity firms.”
