We May Not Get Enough Crude Oil For Our Refineries- FG Raises Alarm

The Federal Government of Nigeria has raised an alarm on the possibility of not getting sufficient crude oil to kick-start the Port Harcourt refinery.

It revealed 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 made this known on Tuesday, stressing that the refineries and modular refineries in the country may not get enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products without an 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.”

The retreat was 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 feedstocks. It will be very embarrassing that we finish Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Warri Dangote, and BUA and we don’t have feedstocks.”

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.