9th January, 2023
By Rotimi Ijikanmi
Nigerian government has projected that it will has no need to importation of premium motor spirit, otherwise called petrol by the first by the first Quarter of 2024.
Though Nigeria is one of the biggest producer of crude oil, the country has over the years relied on importation of refined products for domestic consumption because of its dysfunctional refineries.
But speaking at ”PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)” an initiative by the Ministry of Information and Culture to showcase the achievements of the Buhari administration, Nigeria’s minister of petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva revealed plans to end importation of petrol into the country by the first quarter of 2024.
The Minister said will be achieved with the ramp up of local production of refined petrol from the Port-Harcourt refinery would have been partly completed by the first quarter of 2024.
Sylva specifically said that the 60,000 bpd capacity refinery within the Port-Harcourt Refinery complex would be ready for production by Quarter one of 2024.
The Minister added that the Dangote Refinery, the largest single-train refinery in the world with investment of over 25 billion US dollars would also be on stream before the end of 2023 in addition to several modular refineries projects in the country.
He therefore assured that with the combined production of the Port-Harcourt refinery, Dangote refinery and the modular refineries, Nigeria would end importation of petroleum products into the country.
The minister disclosed that to ensure local supply of the productions by the private refineries the federal government deliberately took 20 per cent equity stake in the Dangote Refinery.
Equally, the minister said the federal government took 30 per cent equity stake in each of the 5000bpd WalterSmith modular refinery in Ibigwe, Imo state and 10,000 bpd Duport Modular Refinery in Edo state among others.
He said that the government is currently addressing the challenge of access to crude oil being faced by the modular refineries.
The minister also reiterated the position of the federal government that subsidy regine was no longer sustainable.
According to him, the huge fund being spent on subsidy could be deployed to other developmental projects that would impact positively on many Nigerians.
He added that the removal of subsidy would attract more investment into the petroleum sector as many private people would be willing to invest in building refineries.