By Dili Nwabueze

Domestic petrol production deficit has always been balanced with importation. However, the proportion of the imports has risen in the past few years to a high of about 80 percent or more of national domestic consumption, and this trend may continue considering the claim by energy officials that “there is no alternative to fuel importation”. Besides petrol, some other finished petroleum products particularly jet fuels, domestic kerosene and diesel are also imported. For many years, enormous foreign exchange has been spent perhaps unnecessarily in the name of finished white hydrocarbon importation thus putting avoidable pressure on the Naira.

Realising these products to meet and even surpass our domestic consumption through appropriate options and technologies that are not only economically favourable but also strategic in good energy management, and minimizing the huge financial mismanagement occasioned by the massive and ‘lucrative’ fuel importation is the thrust of this paper.

Refining Policy for National Economic Needs

Nigeria like most developing economies exhibits a peculiar trend in the comparatively higher demand of petrol, kerosene and gas oils against fuel oils. Moreover, the declining global market for heavy fuel oils as a result of oil substitution by coal and other energy resources coupled with the relatively low and unattractive price value of heavy fuel oils, paves way for what in the future may ultimately be the all premium distillate product refining operation.

In pursuit of Premium Distillate Intensive Refinery configuration, it is important to note that the bulk of crude oils produced in Nigeria are indeed light to super light oils which constitute about 65% of the country’s total production with sulphur content of < 0.15% by weight. To be specific, Nigerian crude oils with API gravity greater than 45° which are the prime choice refinery feedstock for higher yields of major grade products are virtually sulfur free.

Therefore, one would expect that the choicest of Nigeria’s oil production should naturally be reserved and utilised by the owner of the resources. Unfortunately the reverse is the case.  It is only in Nigeria that we forgo the best part of our oil production for the benefit of the people and national economic growth at no advantage and for no logical reasons .

Maximum Premium Distillate Production and Refinery Crude Selection

Premium Distillate production maximization would have been achieved by adopting refinery configuration and administration that would have gone beyond minimizing import deficits but actually maximizing export surpluses of products of comparatively higher economic value.

Instead, what we have presently is a refinery structure that imports more than 80 percent of the more expensive products (petrol, kerosene and diesel) and exports the less fancied and very low economic value fuel oils.

Fuel Scarcity:

Fuel scarcity in Nigeria is deplorable and has been persistent due to strange factors that can be grouped broadly into two – greed and ignorance. It is confounding that a country like Nigeria that is in the midst of plenty sources of motor fuels seem not to know how best to exploit the array of options at its disposal

In this regard, the following relevant questions remain unanswered over the years:

Why should Nigeria permit the export of Natural Gasoline produced in the various gas plants operating in the country instead of harvesting and utilizing such high value liquids as motor fuels blending stock?

• When will Nigeria commercialized LPG (propane and butanes) as motor fuel?
• Why must Nigeria not see wisdom in stopping the export of condensates/volatile oils and reserving this special resource as refinery feedstock for simple Hydroskimming refinery configuration not exceeding NCI-3?

This should be a reasonable thing to do because the capital and operating costs of a simple Hydroskimming refinery is much lower than those fitted with de-oiling processes like catalytic cracking and coking, which are featured in the configuration of Kaduna, Warri and new Port Harcourt refineries.

Fuel Availability

What should be done?    Isolate Condensate as feedstock for Local Refining

Isolate this special oil (condensate and volatile oil) from the bulk export crude and reserve it for domestic refining. Make no mistake about it, condensate or volatile oil is the dream of every refiner.

Exploit NGL as Motor Fuel Liquefied Petroleum Gas.    Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is already established as motor fuel.

Deregulation: Deregulation will reduce the high incidence of product pipeline vandalisation and corruption. This will in turn eliminate the need for product pipeline surveillance, which is an avenue for wasting huge sums of money.

Nwabueze is an Engineer with oil and gas firm in Port Harcourt