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Tag: Fuel Importation

  • Fuel Importation Will End By 2024 – Timipre Sylva

    Fuel Importation Will End By 2024 – Timipre Sylva

    The federal government has announced that fuel importation would end in the country by 2024.

    Minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva made the announcement on Monday, January 9.

    Presenting the scorecard of his ministry, Sylva said by the first quarter of 2024, the rehabilitation of the Port-Harcourt refinery would be partly completed while the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity Dangote Refinery would also be on stream in addition to several modular refineries projects in the country.

    He assured Nigerians that fuel importation will end with the combined production of the Port-Harcourt refinery, Dangote refinery and the modular refineries.

    Sylva further revealed that the federal government deliberately took 20 per cent equity stake in the Dangote Refinery to ensure local supply of the productions by the private refineries.

    He also 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.

    Stressing that the federal government is addressing the challenge of access to crude oil being faced by the modular refineries, the Minister added that the position of the federal government that subsidy regine was no longer sustainable.

    Sylva who stated 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, also assured Nigerians that the huge fund being spent on subsidy would be deployed to other developmental projects.

  • Fuel Importation: Marketers Slam NNPCL’s Monopoly

    Fuel Importation: Marketers Slam NNPCL’s Monopoly

    Oil Marketers in Nigeria have criticised Nigeria’s National Petroleum Company Limited’s import monopoly, claiming that the situation has hurt the petrol market.

    The General Manager, Operations, TotalEnergies Marketing Nigeria Limited, Abdulmutalib Rabiu, called for an end to NNPCL’s petrol import monopoly during his presentation at a virtual press workshop themed, ‘Deregulation: Understanding the Downstream Supply Chain’ held in Lagos on Monday

    Rabiu who was represented by an independent consultant and former Group Executive Director, NNPC, Bello Rabiu, TotalEnergies general manager said the Federal Government should allow healthy competition by granting licenses and access to foreign exchange to marketers willing to get into the products importation business.

    He noted, “But so long as NNPCL remains the sole importer of products importation, the amount spent on importation should be published for everyone to see because it is public fund that the company is using to bring in the products”.

    Chairman, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Olumide Adeosun, said there were about 2.5bn litres of petroleum products onshore Lagos waters.

    According to him, although the association was sure that there was sufficient products in-country, the only challenge was lack of investment in infrastructure to guarantee fast and smooth distribution of the products to eradicate the scarcity.

    “As you can see, as of November, statistics showed that there was enough products onshore Lagos. However, tight daughter vessel availability is hampering efforts to discharge offshore Lagos, contributing to logistics constraints that have seen shortages spring up across the country.

    “The dialogue with the Nigerian people needs to begin to identify, negotiate and agree these areas and begin implementation to save the downstream industry, which has been in freefall due to a lack of investment to maintain, renew and grow assets and facilities such as refineries, pipelines, depots, trucks, and modern filling stations.”

    Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, MOMAN, Clement Usong, while rounding off the session, said full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector should be implemented in phases to cushion the effects of the sharp rise in Premium Motor Spirit prices.

    “Having subsidised PMS for so long, Nigerian institutions now have a diminished capacity to deal with the current local energy crisis. A disruption in any part of the supply chain causes ripple effects and results in queues at stations. As a country, we must begin the process of price deregulation to reduce this inefficient subsidy,” he said.