Nigeria set to depend on Niger Republic for petroleum products

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.”