According to a projection made by the Federal Government on Monday, Nigeria will stop importing petroleum products in the first quarter of 2024.
By the first quarter of 2024, the Port-Harcourt refinery's rehabilitation will be partially complete, and the 650,000 barrel per day (BPD) Dangote Refinery would also be operational, according to State Minister of Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva.
This was said by Sylva during the Ministry of Information and Culture's restart of the "PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)".
The scorecard series, which debuted on October 18, 2022, and featured 16 ministers, was created to highlight the accomplishments of the Buhari government, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The 60,000 BPD capacity refinery within the Port-Harcourt Refinery complex would be ready for production by Quarter One of 2024, Sylva expressly stated when presenting the scorecard of his ministry.
The Minister also mentioned many projects for modular refineries in the nation, as well as the Dangote Refinery, the largest single-train refinery in the world with an investment of over 25 billion US dollars, which will be operational by the end of 2023.
Therefore, he pledged that Nigeria will stop importing petroleum products once the Port-Harcourt refinery, Dangote refinery, and modular refineries were all operating at full capacity.
The minister said that the federal government purposefully acquired a 20% equity position in the Dangote Refinery in order to guarantee the local supply of the products produced by the private refineries.
The minister also stated that the federal government acquired a 30% equity participation in many refineries, including the 10,000 BPD Duport Modular Refinery in Edo state and the 5000 BPD WalterSmith Modular Refineries in Ibigwe, Imo state.
He said that the government is presently resolving the problem with the modular refineries' lack of access to crude oil.
The minister reaffirmed the federal government's stance that the subsidy scheme was no longer viable.
He claimed that the enormous sum being used for subsidies might instead be put toward other projects that would benefit more Nigerians.
He continued by saying that the elimination of subsidies would spur more private investment in the petroleum industry as more people would be prepared to contribute to the cost of constructing refineries. (NAN)