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Nigeria imports 1.25 million barrels of kerosene from US

By on March 7, 2016

Nigeria emerged as the second-largest importer of kerosene from the United States last year, according to a new report released by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the US Energy Department.

The country, which is Africa’s biggest crude oil producer, also took in the third-largest volume of the US jet fuel in 2015.

The report said Nigeria imported 1.25 million barrels of the US kerosene from January to December.

Other products imported from the US by Nigeria include Liquefied Petroleum Gas, lubricants, petroleum coke, fuel ethanol and finished motor gasoline.

The country imported 1.72 million barrels of the LPG; 290,000 barrels of lubricants; 121,000 barrels of petroleum coke, 161,000 barrels of fuel ethanol and 616,000 barrels of finished motor gasoline, the EIA data showed.

Nigeria bought a total of 1.427 million barrels of the US kerosene in 2014. In 2013, 1.040 million barrels were imported; 272,000 barrels in 2012; 1,000 barrels in 2009; 4,000 barrels in 2008, and 1,000 barrels in 1995.

Canada remained the top US kerosene importer, with 3.3 million barrels imported last year. After Nigeria came Finland, which bought 12,000 barrels.

Panama imported 6,000 barrels; Netherlands bought 5,000 barrels, and Colombia imported 4,000 barrels. Venezuela, China and Japan bought 3,000 barrels each, while the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Ecuador purchased 2,000 barrels each.

Ghana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Chile, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Turkey, Israel, Belgium, Bahamas and Peru bought just 1,000 barrels each, the report also stated.

Nigeria depends largely on importation to meet its domestic fuel demand, creating a lucrative market for refiners in the US, Europe and other African countries such as Cameroun and Cote d’Ivoire.

The country’s four refineries have over the years operated far less than their combined nameplate capacity of 445,000 barrels per day.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in January announced that it had shut down the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, owing to crude supply challenges arising from recent attacks on vital crude oil pipelines.

The 150,000bpd refinery in Port Harcourt and the 110,000 bpd Kaduna refinery had resumed operations in December after several months of shutdown.

Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries, which had resumed production of refined petroleum products in July last year after undergoing rehabilitation, were shut down in August, September and October, respectively before resuming in December.

The NNPC had earlier in January announced that the nation’s three refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri had attained a combined daily production of over 6.76 million litres of petrol per day, which is projected to increase to over 10 million litres per day by the end of January 2016.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had, in its 2015 World Oil Outlook released in December, highlighted the need for more refining facilities in Nigeria and other African countries to meet their growing demand for petroleum products.

OPEC said the inability to keep regional refinery output in line with growing product demand had led to sustained growth in product imports across the continent.

“Africa is well positioned for downstream capacity additions. Currently, the region imports around 30 per cent of the refined products it consumes. This makes it, in relative terms, by far the largest net product-importing region.”

The situation existed not only due to insufficient ‘nameplate’ refining capacity, but also because of very low utilisation rates in many of its facilities, the report said.

According to the OPEC report, the challenge for African countries is also exacerbated by the emergence of sophisticated export refineries in the Middle East and Asia, growing net product exports from the US and the excess gasoline market position in Europe.

It said, “In short, African countries are essentially surrounded by relatively low cost, high volume refiners who see the continent as a growing market for their products. With sustained demand growth projected to continue through to 2040, there are substantial challenges for the region.

“Nevertheless, there are also opportunities for refiners in the region given the demand growth. That said, competing on the main fuel products against foreign refiners will continue to be a challenge, and one that will not disappear based on current trends.”.

 

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