The Ministry of Petroleum Resources announced that Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, is set to resume the importation of petroleum products from a neighbouring country, Niger Republic, Nature News gathered.
The Ministry made this announcement on Thursday in a statement that the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on for petroleum products transportation and storage.
“Niger’s total domestic requirement is about 5,000bpd, thus leaving a huge surplus of about 15,000 bpd, mostly for export,” a statement reads.
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The ministry said the MoU was signed by the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari and the Director-General of SONIDEP, Mr Alio Toune, under the supervision of the two countries’ Ministers of State for Petroleum, Çhief Timipre Sylva and Mr Foumakoye Gado, respectively with the Secretary-General of the African Petroleum Producers Organisation, 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 Refinery in Zinder (Niger) into the most proximate Nigerian city so that we can develop a depot.”
