The Nigerian government has stated that it will be very embarrassing if Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Warri, Dangote and BUA refineries don’t have enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products after it finishes fixing them.
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, who made this known on Tuesday, asserted that the refineries and modular refineries in the country may not get enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products without increase in production in the sector.
The Minister expressed the fear publicly for the third time in the last four months at the 2024 sector retreat for the ministry, held yesterday in Abuja with the theme: “Building Synergy for Enhanced Development in the Oil and Gas Sector” according to Daily Trust.
The retreat was said to have been convened to discuss how to achieve the targets and mandates set for the ministry by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the ministerial retreat held in November, 2023.
He said: “The first target is to see how we can ramp up production, and then we can meet our target in terms of increase in revenue, meet our obligation in the mid-stream and upstream.
“One of the challenges I am afraid of is, if we finish fixing our refineries, we will be unable to get feed stocks. It will be very embarrassing that we finish Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Warri and Dangote and BUA and we don’t have feed stocks.”
Lokpobiri had first raised the issue in November, 2023, while responding to the questions asked by the State House correspondents at the end of the three-day retreat at the Presidential Villa.
Nigeria’s Dangote refinery and the largest in Africa, had in January planned to import crude from the United States, a report had said.
Traders with knowledge of the matter said Trafigura Group sold 2 million barrels of WTI Midland to Dangote refinery for end-February delivery, Bloomberg reports.
