As Nigeria’s fuel scarcity lingers, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, said two refineries – Port Harcourt and Warri – would be fully operational by the end of 2024.

He said plans have already been put in place to achieve the target, adding that the Kaduna Refinery would also be operational before the end of next year.

According to him, the completion of the plants and the addition of supply from the 650,000 barrels per day, bpd Dangote Refinery would enable the nation to meet its domestic fuel demand.

The senator also urged the federal government and other stakeholders to work toward the establishment of modular refineries to further expand the nation’s domestic capacity to refine crude oil.

He said: “My mandate is to ensure that the refineries in Nigeria are up and functional. By my involvement, before the end of this year, two refineries will be up and running.

“Also, before the end of next year, the Kaduna refinery will come on stream. Also, the production of jet oil, and tolubricant will be produced by mid-next year.

“I can assure Nigerians that I will tirelessly pursue and ensure that these refineries are up and running before the end of the year. We have set up a technical team to visit the refineries every two weeks in order to meet the set target.”

We’ll end gas flaring next year – Seplat

Similarly, Seplat Energy, a onstreamNigerian independent oil and Gas Company listed on both the London and Nigerian Stock Exchanges, has concluded plans to end gas flaring in 2025.

The company said the 2025 target would be reached when the ASA North project and Sapele gas plant come on stream, thus increasing its supply capacity to 850 million cubic feet SCF of gas daily.

The Chief Operating Officer of the company, Samson Ezugworie, who disclosed this at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, in Houston, Texas, United States, said: “In the past, gas was perceived to be a bad business because all the oil and gas installations did not have a way of harnessing the associated gas from oil production. The associated gas was flayed, thus impacting negatively on the environment.

“Now, that has changed in Seplat. We have made conscious efforts to harness the associated gas by putting in place gas solutions. By the second half of 2025, we will bring routine gas flaring to an end.

 “With those two projects coming, and 850 million SCF of gas per day capacity, the gas will be used all and 100% within Nigeria for domestic use. We are now solving the problem of gas for power.

“The gas that we produce today is going into the national grid. We are committed to supplying gas for power generation. Recently, we were supposed to take a three-day shutdown of the urban gas plant to fix some asset issues and change the generators.

“But because other partners that supply gas into the domestic line were not ready with their gas, we made a conscious decision not to take the three-day shutdown. Doing so would have put Nigeria in total darkness.

“However, we look forward to having another statutory shutdown in August this year. We have to continuously supply gas into the national grid because if we do not supply, we would be depriving people of power.”

He also said: “As a company we operate profitably. But gas debts are a major issue, which explains why most of the international oil companies never invested in domestic gas. In other words, many potential investors did not perceive gas as a profitable business.

“However, Seplat has the foresight and strategy. We know that even if you owe today, there is a chance that you’ll pay tomorrow. A significant part of the debts has been settled. Now, we are working ourselves into the willing buyer, willing seller contracts.

“Also, most people that offtake our gas. We have a payment structure that ensures that going forward, we are not going to be having the debt piling up, but then they have a structured way of paying the outstanding debts.”