How Nigeria’s oil sector fared under Tinubu in one year

On 29 May 2023, President Bola Tinubu took the oath of office as the elected president of Nigeria after defeating 17 other candidates who took part in the election.

While campaigning across the country, Mr Tinubu, who contested under the All Progressives Congress (APC), adopted “Renewed Hope” as a mantra.

At the time, he promised to implement key reforms in the energy sector and ensure collaboration between security agencies and oil industry operators to stem oil theft and abolish fuel subsidies.

“We shall work in a coordinated manner to implement key reforms in the energy sector and collaborate to stem oil theft and vandalisation of fuel infrastructure to tap the current high oil prices,” Mr Tinubu said at a dialogue organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and other business leaders in Lagos in January last year.

Three months after he was sworn in, Mr Tinubu assigned portfolios to his ministers.

The president, however, did not assign any ministerial nominee to head the ministries of petroleum and gas resources. Although Mr Tinubu did not directly state that he intends to hold the office of petroleum minister, the failure to appoint someone for the position indicates he seeks to hold the office.

Heineken Lokpobiri, a former Nigerian senator, was named the Minister of State for Petroleum while Ekperikpe Epko, a former member of the House of Representatives, was named the Minister of State for Gas Resources.

Mr Lokpobiri, as a junior minister of petroleum, is expected to resolve challenges affecting the petroleum sector, especially the issues of crude theft, lack of oil investments and further development of the country’s oil assets to increase revenues from the petroleum sector.

Mr Epko, on his part, is mandated to execute the policies passed by Mr Tinubu’s administration that are geared towards making the country utilise its gas potential for power generation and distribution, clean cooking, auto-use, and industrialisation.

In this report, PREMIUM TIMES presents a one-year scorecard of Mr Tinubu’s administration based on his campaign and other promises made upon assumption of office in the petroleum sector.

Promises made

In his manifesto, Mr Tinubu promised to increase oil production to 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 and 4 million bpd by 2030 and increase the indigenous share of crude oil production to over 1 million bpd by 2027.

The president also aimed to achieve full deregulation of midstream gas prices within six months, increase gas production by 20 per cent, complete critical gas infrastructure projects by 2027, accelerate the full implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and implement additional favourable policies to attract investment in deepwater assets within 6 months.

Mr Tinubu also promised to achieve stability of petroleum products supply by fully deregulating the downstream sector and ensuring that local refinery capacity will meet domestic consumption needs and secure public-private partnerships (PPP) and international partnerships towards financing infrastructure development.

Fuel subsidy removal

Since assuming office, Mr Tinubu has eliminated the nation’s costly fuel subsidies, a move he promised during his campaign.

Speaking during his inaugural address shortly after taking the oath of office as Nigeria’s 16th leader, Mr Tinubu announced the removal of subsidy on petrol which the government was spending almost a trillion naira on monthly.

In 2022, over N4 trillion was used to subsidise petrol, more than the government spent on education and healthcare combined.

Last May, Mr Tinubu said the petrol subsidy regime was not sustainable. He also stated that funds for the subsidy will be diverted to other things like public infrastructure, education, health care and jobs.

“We commend the decision of the outgoing administration in phasing out the petrol subsidy regime which has increasingly favoured the rich more than the poor. Subsidy can no longer justify its ever-increasing costs in the wake of drying resources.

“We shall, instead, re-channel the funds into better investment in public infrastructure, education, health care and jobs that will materially improve the lives of millions,” Mr Tinubu said.

Apart from helping to save public funds, according to the government, the removal of the subsidy was also expected to allow for more private-sector operators in the petrol sector including in the importation of the product.

Mr Tinubu’s announcement sparked the increase in fuel price from N197 to between N480 and N570 which immediately triggered an increase in transportation fares and prices of goods and services in the country.

Petrol Import

In July 2023, the petrol pump price was reviewed upward to N617/litre at various outlets of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC Ltd).

At the time, the NNPC Ltd attributed the rise in prices to ‘market forces’. The NNPC Ltd Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, said with the deregulation of the oil sector, market realities will force the price of petrol up sometimes and at other times force it down.

“We have the marketing wing of our company. They adjust prices depending on the market realities. This is really what is happening; this is the meaning of making sure that the market regulates itself so that prices will go up and sometimes they will come down also. This is what we have seen, and in reality, this is what (how) the market works,” Mr Kyari said at the time.

NNPC Ltd has since 2016 been the sole importer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the country. But on 15 June 2023, the company announced it was no longer the sole supplier of petroleum products in Nigeria.

The development came months after the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said it was fast-tracking the process of issuing oil marketers licenses to import petroleum products in its bid to break the monopoly of the NNPC Ltd in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.

On 19 July 2023, Emadeb Energy Services Limited imported the first batch of petrol of about 27 million litres into the country.

According to the company, the product came into the country in a cargo valued at over $17 million with huge foreign exchange components.

Speaking in Lagos at an event to mark the inaugural importation of petrol into the country by Emadeb Energy, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Adebowale Olujimi, said the company had proven its capacity and readiness to actively play its part in ensuring steady product supply in the country.

He noted that despite the removal of petroleum subsidy, local refining remained the best option for the country to guarantee energy security, considering the huge foreign exchange implication of the imported products.

“The value of this cargo here, you cannot find it in the market just like that. It is over $17 million, and you can’t, in any way, with what the FX is today. Today, we have imported 27 million litres of PMS, but local refining is the way forward for us in this country.

“We want to be one of the earlycomers into this game. In conjunction with some of our trading partners, we decided to source for the licences and that is what has brought us here today,” Arise TV quoted Mr Olujimi as saying.

Meanwhile, NNPC Ltd has said it has returned to being the sole importer of petrol in the country.

Mr Kyari said licensed private oil companies are unable to obtain foreign exchange for importation.

“We are the only company importing premium motor spirit (PMS) into the country. None of them (oil companies) can do it today. For them, access to foreign exchange is difficult. We create foreign exchange (FX), therefore we have access to FX, while their access to FX is limited,” Mr Kyari said when speaking during the Energy Labour Summit organised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) last October.

There have been speculations that the government had partly reintroduced a petrol subsidy, unannounced, to keep the pump price at around N617 given the continued fall in the value of the naira against the dollar and the price of crude oil in the international market. Since Nigeria depends on imported refined products, the exchange rate is a key determiner of the prices they are sold to consumers.

But last August, Mr Tinubu assured Nigerians that there would be no further increase in the pump price of petrol, despite the deregulation of the product.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed this while briefing journalists in Abuja after a closed-door meeting with the president.

“The president wishes to assure Nigerians, following the announcements by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) just yesterday, that there will be no increase in the pump price of petroleum motor spirit anywhere in the country,” the spokesperson said. “We repeat, the president affirms that there will be no increase in the pump price of petroleum motor spirit.”

Mr Tinubu also acknowledged that there are inefficiencies within the downstream sector that are contributing to the fuel price controversy. He assured that all loopholes associated with the smooth delivery of petroleum products in the country will be addressed immediately.

Meanwhile, on 6 October 2023, the National President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Festus Osifo, insisted that the Nigerian government had restored the subsidy on petrol, despite the official government policy of ending the subsidy regime.

Mr Osifo, who is also the president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), one of Nigeria’s two largest workers union coalitions, while featuring on a Channels Television programme, Politics Today, said due to the cost of crude oil in the international market and the exchange rate, the government still pays subsidies on petrol.

“The government has to come clean. In reality today, there is a subsidy because as of when the earlier price was determined, the price of crude in the international market was somewhere around less than $80 a barrel. But today, it has moved to about $93/94 per barrel for Brent crude. So, because it has moved, then the price (of petrol) also needed to move,” Mr Osifo said at the time.

In its reaction, NNPC Ltd said the Nigerian government has not resumed payment of subsidy on petrol.

“No subsidy whatsoever. We are recovering our full cost from the products that we import. We sell to the market and we understand why the marketers are unable to import,” Mr Kyari told State House correspondents after a meeting with the president at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“We hope that they do it very quickly and these are some of the interventions the government is doing. There is no subsidy.”

The government’s announcement last year that it had removed subsidies on petrol led to increased government revenue with total distributable revenue increasing from about N786.161 billion in May 2023 to about N1.9 trillion in June 2023 as the government earned money that would in the past be used to subsidise petrol.

But despite the pronouncement, the Nigerian government recently said that fuel subsidy is projected to reach N5.4 trillion by the end of 2024. This, it said, compares unfavourably with N3.6 trillion in 2023.

This is contained in a draft copy report of the Accelerated Stabilization and Advancement Plan (ASAP) presented to President Bola Tinubu by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.

Refineries

Nigeria owns four refineries with two located in Port Harcourt and one each in Warri and Kaduna. But for many years, the refineries have been moribund despite Turn-Around-Maintenance efforts (TAM).

This has resulted in the importation of petroleum products for domestic use to cover the gap in the refinery’s output, costing the nation dear in terms of lost revenue.

The Port Harcourt Refineries comprise two units, with the old plant having a refining capacity of 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) and the new plant 150,000 bpd, both summing up to 210,000 bpd.

The refinery shut down in March 2019 for the first phase of repair works after the government secured the service of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont to handle the review of the refinery complex, with oil major Eni appointed technical adviser.

In 2021, NNPC Ltd said repairs had started at PHRC after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved $1.5 billion for the project.

In September 2022, the then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said the country’s biggest crude refinery in Port Harcourt would restart operation in December after it had completed a revamp that began over a year ago. But PREMIUM TIMES analysis at the time showed that the timelines were unmet.

Again, in January 2023, Mr Sylva assured that part of the refinery would be completed by the year’s first quarter, but the government again failed to meet its target.

In August 2023, Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for Petroleum Resources (Oil), assured that the Port Harcourt refinery would become functional by December after numerous failed attempts.

On 21 December, the Tinubu administration announced the mechanical completion and the flare start-off of the Port Harcourt refinery. The development implied that the fixing of the refinery’s equipment and systems had been completed, it said.

At the time, Mr Lokpobiri explained that production of petroleum products at the refinery would commence after the Christmas break.

“Just to announce to Nigerians the fulfilment of our pledge to bring on stream phase one of the Port Harcourt refinery by the end of 2023 and the subsequent streaming of phase two in 2024. We happily announced the mechanical completion and the flare start-off on the 20th of December 2023,” he said.

However, despite this announcement, the refinery has yet to start crude oil refining.

On 15 May, Mr Tinubu commissioned three gas infrastructure projects in Imo and Delta States.

The projects commissioned by the president include the ANOH-OB3 CTMS gas pipeline and ANOH gas processing plant in Assa Community, Ohaji/Egbema LGA, Imo State, and the AHL gas processing plant, two gas projects in Kwale in Delta.

The projects, being undertaken by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) and partners, are in line with the president’s commitment to leverage gas to grow the economy significantly.

The projects support the federal government’s effort to grow value from the nation’s gas assets while eliminating gas flaring and moving towards environmentally friendly energy sources.

Speaking during the commissioning, Mr Tinubu said “Today, I have the singular honour to commission the expansion of the AHL Gas Processing Plant, the ANOH Gas Processing Plant and the 23.3Km ANOH to Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben(OB3) Custody Transfer Metering Station Gas Pipeline Projects in line with this administration’s resolve to provide energy for Nigerians, and to use our vast natural gas resources to transform Nigeria.”

He said the commissioning event is highly significant to the country as it demonstrates the administration’s concerted efforts to accelerate the development of critical gas infrastructure geared at enhancing the supply of energy to boost industrial growth and create employment opportunities and further prosperity.

Oil theft/pipeline vandalism

Crude theft and pipeline vandalism are major problems plaguing Nigeria’s 0il sector despite repeated efforts to curb the menace by past administrations.

In December 2022, Mr Tinubu promised to put an end to the menace. Speaking during a Town Hall meeting with labour unions, he promised to ensure maximum deployment of technology to curtail oil theft in the country.

Last June, Mr Tinubu instructed the nation’s security chiefs to deal with oil theft, noting that he won’t tolerate the menace.

Earlier in September 2023, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, said Nigeria lost N16.25 trillion to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020.

He said the menace of crude oil theft had hampered the growth of the country’s oil production, with between five and 30 per cent of crude oil production lost daily.

In October, the House of Representatives resolved to introduce legislative instruments to halt crude oil theft.

Benjamin Kalu, the deputy speaker of the House, who disclosed this during the presentation of the report of an ad hoc committee investigating crude oil theft and loss of revenue from Oil and Gas at the end of the week’s legislative activities said that oil theft accounts for the loss of over $1 billion which represents a huge percentage of national budget.

He lamented that the scourge of oil theft impedes the government’s ability to carry out critical projects for Nigeria’s prosperity. Mr Kalu said the menace also reduced the confidence of investments in the oil and gas sector.

He added that it hindered the ability of the government to procure loans from development partners for expenditure on critical developmental projects.

Also in November, the NNPC Ltd said oil thieves had vandalised over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines connecting different parts of the country.

Mr Kyari who disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) on 21 November said the continuous vandalisation of the pipelines was causing a huge loss to the NNPC Ltd while describing the situation as a ‘national calamity’.

“Over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines in the country are not working as a result of pipeline vandalism. Ten million litres of oil was lost from the volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time. The company has been unable to pump oil from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years and cannot connect to Ore.

“There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which to us in NNPC Ltd, is substantially a national calamity,” Mr Kyari said.

Again in December, NNPC Ltd said illegal oil refiners connected 4,800 pipelines on its over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipeline across the country.

Mr Kyari who disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriations lamented the increase in illegal connection of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta region and other parts of the country.

“As it is today, about 4,800 illegal connections are made on the over 5,000 oil pipelines across the country.

“The illegal connections on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta is so rampant that within 100 kilometres of the affected pipelines, 300 insertions are made on them, which eventually made the pipe to be weak to the point of not being able to hold the pressure of oil pumped, let alone, delivering it to targeted destination,” Mr Kyari said.

In the last year, security agents have discovered illegal refining sites in the country’s oil-producing region.