The Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has expressed concerns over the inability of Dangote Refinery and domestic refineries to get crude oil supply despite the country’s huge reserves.
Gbenga Komolafe, the Chief Executive of NUPRC, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during the meeting with operators of domestic refineries.
He stated that “it is going to be a matter of national shame if we cannot meet our domestic crude obligations to step up our refining capacity,” stressing that the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote refinery was ready and should be provided with crude.
He said, “Good enough we have the largest refinery in Africa, the Dangote refinery. It is ready to commence operations. We’ve received a request from the refinery to guarantee feedstock to the 650,000 barrels refinery, and we believe that as a nation, it will be a shame if we cannot meet the refinery’s feedstock.
The NUPRC boss stressed that the domestic refining of crude would impact positively on the pump prices of refined petroleum products.
“We are a nation with a huge crude oil reserve, about 38 billion barrels. So we are blessed as a nation, but despite the crude oil reserves I mentioned, we are a net exporter of crude oil and a net importer of refined products.
“And from the data, we are all aware of, our inability to meet our domestic refining obligation has impacted negatively on the state of our economy, given the number that we roll out in terms of under-recovery that we incurred during the fuel subsidy regime.
“We all understand that if we can meet our domestic refining obligations, we will be able to impact mainly on some of the attendant costs in pricing the refined products.
“So it behoves on us all as an industry to find a way to make Nigeria a net exporter of refined products, and that is the issue that we gather here to address,” the NUPRC boss stated.
DAILY POST recalls that the Executive Director of Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin, said on 20 September that its refinery was billed to receive its first crude oil cargo in two weeks to herald its commencement. However, months later, the refinery is yet to kick off.
