According to the federal government, it has strengthened partnerships with refinery owners in the private sector in order to boost domestic refining capacity and increase product accessibility in the nation. This is because the Port Harcourt Refinery is scheduled to start processing petroleum products in the first quarter of 2023 at its 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity.
Timipre Sylva, the minister of state for petroleum, announced that the federal government had purchased 20 to 30 percent equity stakes in private refineries, including Dangote (30 percent), Duport refinery (30 percent), Walter Smith (30 percent), and Azikel (20 percent) (20 per cent).
The federal government finances four private refineries. In his address, the minister said that some strategic priorities of the sector include eradicating smuggling of PMS across Nigerian borders, completing the gas flare commercialization program, increasing crude oil production to 3 million barrels per day, reducing the cost of crude oil extraction by at least five per cent, boosting private sector partnership to increase domestic refining capacity, creating jobs and eradicating poverty.
Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer, Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, while reiterating an update on the Port Harcourt refinery said the total rehabilitation of the refinery will take 42 months from the day the contract was awarded, and is done on basis and by plants.
He said under this administration, fertilizer blending plants in the country had increased from 10 in 2015 to 48 while the number of rice mills had increased significantly which caused Nigeria’s import of rice from Thailand to drop significantly.