Nigeria to resume fuel imports from Niger Republic
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, is set to resume the importation of petroleum products from a neighbouring country, Niger Republic.
The Ministry of Petroleum Resources announced on Thursday, that the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Thursday for petroleum products transportation and storage.
Niger Republic’s Soraz Refinary in Zinder, some 260km from the Nigerian border, has an installed refining capacity of 20,000 barrels per day.
“Niger’s total domestic requirement is about 5,000bpd, thus leaving a huge surplus of about 15,000bpd, mostly for exports”, it said.
The ministry said the MoU was signed by the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari and the Director-General of the SONIDEP, Mr Alio, under the supervision of the two countries’ Ministers of the State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva and Mr Foumakoye Gado, respectively with the Secretary General of the African Petroleum Producers Organization, Dr Omar Ibrahim, in attendance.
“This is a major step forward. Niger Republic has some excess products which needs to be evacuated. Nigeria has the market for these products. Therefore, this is going to be a win-win relation for both countries”, Sylva said.
Kyari said the two countries had had long engagements in the last four to five months with a view to restoring the importation of petroleum products (excess production) from Niger into Nigeria.
He said, “With this development, we hope to have a long lasting and sustainable commercial framework to having a pipeline from the Soraz Refinary in Zinder (Niger) into the most proximate Nigerian city so that we can develop a depot”.