According to Timipre Sylva, Nigeria’s oil minister, the country expects to stop importing petroleum products before or around the third quarter of 2023.
By the end of December, according to Sylva, a renovated refinery in Port Harcourt, an oil-producing city in the Niger Delta, will be able to produce 60,000 barrels per day of refined crude. The minister added that he still anticipates the opening of the new Dangote refinery in the first quarter of 2023.
Sylva told reporters in Abuja that Nigeria’s crude production had increased to about 1.3 million barrels per day from under 1 million barrels previously and that the nation hoped to meet its OPEC quota by May of next year.
Nigeria trades in refined petroleum products for its crude, but is in the process of modernising the Port Harcourt refinery at a cost of $1.5 billion.