The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has met with  operators of domestic refineries to address challenges around crude supplies to indigenous refineries.

Domestic refiners, particularly modular ones, have been complaining of unavailability of feedstock, which is impacting negatively on their operations.

According to Punch, speaking at the meeting which held in Abuja, the Commission Chief Executive of NUPRC, Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, said that it would be a “national shame” if the country cannot meet its domestic crude obligations to ramp up its refining capacity.

Recall that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, which owns 20 percent stake in the 650,000 barrels per day  Dangote Refinery, had in May disclosed that it would supply 300,000 crude oil to the refinery.

Komolafe stressed the need to guarantee feedstock supplies to the refinery, which was commissioned in May by former President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Good enough we have the largest refinery in Africa, that is the Dangote refinery. It is ready to commence operations. We’ve received a request from the refinery to guarantee feedstock to the 650,000 barrels refinery and we believe that as a nation it will be a shame if we cannot meet the feedstock of the refinery.

“So this meeting was convened for us to collectively put heads together to address the feedstock of our domestic refineries. The objective is for us all to take the nation to a level where it becomes a net exporter of refined product, as against being a net exporter of crude without value addition,” Komolafe said.

Despite writing to oil producers asking them to give details on the volumes of committed and uncommitted crude oil in their domains, the NUPRC boss said some of the companies are yet to comply.

He said: “Some producers are yet to comply with that letter. We need responses to that letter so that our development and production department will be able to analyse and advise the commission appropriately as to the available and non-committed barrels that we have.

“For us to now be able to compare that with the total domestic requirements for feedstock. So it is when we get that that we will be able to draw a conclusion whether the non-committed volumes will be able to meet our current domestic feedstock as a nation. So that is where we are.”

Komolafe regretted that despite having about 38 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, Nigeria remains a net importer of refined petroleum products.

He explained that the country’s inability to meet its domestic refining obligation is  impacting negatively on the  nation’s economy.

“We are a nation with huge crude oil reserves, which is about 38 billion barrels. So we are blessed as a nation, but in spite of the crude oil reserves that I mentioned, we are a net exporter of crude oil and net importer of refined products.

“And from the data we are all aware of, our inability to meet our domestic refining obligation has impacted negatively on the state of our economy, given the number that we roll out in terms of under-recovery that we incurred during the fuel subsidy regime.

“We all understand that if we are able to meet our domestic refining obligations, we will be able to impact largely on some of the attendant costs in pricing the refined products.

“So it behoves on us all as an industry to find a way to make Nigeria a net exporter of refined products, and that is the issue that we gather here to address,” Komolafe said.