Nigeria’s federal government plans to stop fuel importation within the next two years, when it would have completed the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of its local refineries, the local media reported Thursday, quoting Petroleum Resources Minister Dieziani Allison-Madueke.
The minister was quoted as saying, in Vienna, Austria, where she is on official assignment, that the first phase of the TAM had started with the Port Harcourt refinery in the African nation’s oil producing Niger Delta region.
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, imports most of the refined petroleum products it consumes because the country’s four refineries are either not functioning or are doing so at far below installed capacity, due to years of neglect.
Attempts by previous administrations to make the refineries work at full capacity have met with modest success, raising doubts about the current efforts.
