Edo refinery laments lack of crude supply by NNPC, local companies

The management of AIPCC Energy Limited, operators of the Edo Refinery and Petrochemicals Company Limited (ERPCL), says it lacks crude oil supply despite being a fully functional 1,000 barrels per day crude oil refinery.

The company said the Edo refinery is yet to get any supply from the relevant authorities — despite President Bola Tinubu’s directive on crude oil supply to local refineries.

Speaking to journalists in Benin City on Sunday, the management of the refinery said the firm is facing significant challenges due to the persistent lack of crude supply.

Segun Okeni, a representative of the company, said the refinery can barely function at full capacity.

Okeni said although the company has existing crude oil supply agreements with Seplat Energy and ND Western since 2022, bureaucratic bottlenecks have prevented the refinery from accessing the much-needed crude feedstock.

“On 18th August 2021, our team led by our chairman, met with the NNPCL CEO and its top management team to discuss our intention to buy crude oil from NNPCL and we immediately wrote seeking crude supply, the letter was dated 22 July 2022,” he said.

“In July 2022, the representatives of NNPC (from HQ Abuja and NPDC Benin) visited our facility for site inspection and to confirm the mechanical completion of the Edo refinery.

“In September 2022, we were invited for a commercial negotiation meeting with the NNPC Head of terms, after which we sent a follow-up letter identifying the oil fields from which we can offtake crude oil.

“In March 2022, we also wrote to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, informing it of our refinery status, future projects and our challenges of lack of crude oil supply to our refinery.

“We had also written and had a meeting with the NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL) between November 2022 and March 2023, indicating our severe need for crude oil supply from oil fields where NEPL has equity stakes.”

However, the Edo refinery official said despite these meetings, correspondences, and communications with the NNPC over the past three years on the issues of crude oil supply, nothing was done.

On the way forward, the ERPCL said the NNPC and other crude oil suppliers need to put loading infrastructure in place to allow for truck loading.

On August 9, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery said it had not received the 29 million barrels of crude allocated to it by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).