Petroleum Minister raises alarm over lack of crude oil for P/Harcourt, Dangote, other refineries

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has raised the alarm that newly inaugurated Dangote Petrochemical Refinery, Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri Refinery, Kaduna refinery and modular refineries in the country may not get enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products without increase in production in the sector.

Lokpobiri, who raised the alarm on Tuesday at the 2024 sector retreat for the ministry in Abuja, with the theme: ‘Building Synergy for Enhanced Development in the Oil and Gas Sector,’ noted that 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.

READ ALSO: Port Harcourt refinery to deliver petrol in two weeks — Kyari

The Minister 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 feed stocks. It will be very embarrassing that we finish Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Warri and Dangote and BUA and we don’t have feed stocks.”

Recall that Lokpobiri had first raised the issue in November, 2023, while answering questions from State House correspondents after the end of a three-day retreat at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now