By Felix Onuah
ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s oil refinery in Port Harcourt could start processing crude as early as the end of this year after an upgrade, the petroleum minister said on Wednesday, which could help to end frequent fuel shortages in Africa’s biggest producer.
Timipre Sylva had said in April that the refinery would start production in the first quarter of next year.
He told reporters that once Port Harcourt, with a capacity of 210,000 barrels per day (bpd), and the new 600,000 bpd Dangote refinery located in Lagos start production, it would end Nigeria’s fuel shortages.
“By the end of this year the old Port Harcourt refinery will start work and also the Dangote refinery is expected to be on stream by January next year,” Timipre said.
“So we will get to the situation that Nigeria will be fully supplied with fuel and scarcity will be a thing of the past.”
The Port Harcourt refinery is undergoing a $1.5 billion modernisation after Italy’s Tecnimont was last year awarded the contract to carry out the work.
With global oil prices rising, Nigeria wants to refine its own fuels. Its previous efforts to revamp its refineries stalled, leaving it reliant on imports.
(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Editing by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
