THE country’s net oil imports surged to $19.02 billion in 2022, up by 64.4 percent from $11.57 billion a year ago mainly on account of high crude prices and increasing fuel demand, data from the Department of Energy (DOE) stated.
The net import bill is the difference between oil imports and exports.
The total imports rose by 61.1 percent to $19.68 billion last year from $12.15 billion in the same period a year ago. This was attributed to high import cost of crude and finished petroleum products in 2022.
The average dollar rate for December 2022, $54.50, vis-à-vis December 2021’s average rate of $49.28, contributed to a higher import bill, the DOE data showed.
In terms of volume, total imports rose to 26.48 billion liters last year from 24.44 billion liters in 2021.
Total import cost of crude oil amounted to $4.43 billion, 95 percent higher vis-à-vis last year’s $2.27 billion. This was made up of 77.4 percent finished petroleum products and 22.6 percent crude oil.
For finished petroleum products import cost, there was a growth of 53.3 percent to $15.15 billion from $9.88 billion. The rise was due to higher import costs of finished products in 2022.
Meanwhile, total export earnings dropped by 4.1 percent to $556.53 million from $580.1 million this year due to decreased volume of exported products during the period.
The total petroleum product exports went up to 979 million liters last year from 814 million liters in 2021.
The country, meanwhile, imported 6.89 billion liters of crude and 19.58 billion liters of finished petroleum products.