The Federal Government says Nigeria will put an end to the importation of petroleum products into the country in 2024.
The Minister of state Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva stated this at the resumption of the ”PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)” organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture.
The scorecard series inaugurated on Oct. 18, 2022 is meant to showcase the achievements of the Buhari administration.
Sylva said with the combined production of the Port-Harcourt refinery, Dangote refinery and the modular refineries, Nigeria would end importation of petroleum products into the country by the first Quarter of 2024.
He said by the first quarter of 2024 the rehabilitation of the Port-Harcourt refinery would be partly completed while the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity Dangote Refinery would also be on stream.
He said to ensure local supply of the productions by the private refineries the federal government deliberately took 20 per cent equity stake in the Dangote Refinery.
Sylva specifically said that the 60,000 bpd capacity refinery within the Port-Harcourt Refinery complex would be ready for production by Quarter one of 2024.
The Minister added that the Dangote Refinery, the largest single-train refinery in the world with investment of over 25 billion US dollars would also be on stream before the end of 2023 in addition to several modular refineries projects in the country.
Equally, the minister said the federal government took 30 per cent equity stake in each of the 5000bpd WalterSmith modular refinery in Ibigwe, Imo state and 10,000 bpd Duport Modular Refinery in Edo state among others.
He said that the government is currently addressing the challenge of access to crude oil being faced by the modular refineries.
The minister also reiterated the position of the federal government that subsidy regime was no longer sustainable.
According to him, the huge fund being spent on subsidy could be deployed to other developmental projects that would impact positively on many Nigerians.
He added that the removal of subsidy would attract more investment into the petroleum sector as many private people would be willing to invest in building refineries.