Ahead of the start of refining operations later this quarter, Shell Nigeria has begun supplying crude oil to Nigeria’s Port Harcourt plant.
Deliveries were made to the company this week, according to Bamidele Odugbesan, the company spokesperson, who confirmed this information in an interview with Reuters.
“Future supplies from the Bonny oil and gas terminal would be guided by the product’s demand,” he said.
Around January, 475,000 barrels of oil were supplied to the Port-Harcourt refinery, according to a statement from Shell’s manager of the Bonny oil terminal.
Since the fuel subsidy was removed in June, Nigeria has sought to stop importing petroleum products and keep prices at a low level. Fuel costs increased by about 200% when the subsidies were removed.
Although the CEO of the NNPCL stated in a June interview that domestic refining would not significantly lower fuel costs across the country following the subsidy, he clarified that the decline would be limited to N20 to N30 when compared to imported fuel.
The Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Agency (NUPRC) ordered oil companies operating in Nigeria last month to provide 483,000 barrels of oil per day to local refineries around Nigeria.
The recently restored Port-Harcourt refinery, which was supposed to receive 75,000 barrels of oil per day, is one of the refineries that will profit.
In an effort to increase domestic refining capacity in the wake of the commissioning of the 650,000-bpd Dangote refinery, the Nigerian government, acting through the NNPCL, has been hiring contractors since 2021 to repair the four state-owned refineries located throughout the nation.
The NNPCL declared in December that the Port-Harcourt refinery’s phase 1 mechanical testing and turnaround maintenance had been completed. The estimated $1.5 billion in repairs were planned in stages.
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Source: allnews.ng