Port Harcourt Refinery Resumes

Nigeria's 210 ,000- barrels-a-day Port Harcourt Refining Company, or PHRC, has restarted production, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., or NNPC, said Tuesday, just as the country's central bank warned on the continued costs of fuel subsidies. "For the first time in a long while, the nation's three refineries [Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt] are operating simultaneously," said Austen Oniwon, NNPC's group managing director. The PHRC was shut down more than two years ago, and efforts to reopen it had been affected by power problems. Nigeria imports a large portion of the petroleum products used by its 150 million citizens because its domestic refineries produce below their combined installed capacity, around 450 ,000 barrels a day. Speaking at the same event, Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido said that there was no alternative to deregulation of the downstream oil sector. The Nigerian government has said it would end the subsidy on domestically sold petroleum products because it could no longer sustain the 640 billion naira a year spent on subsidies, but no date has been set for this. "Oil is the main source of revenue to the federal government, and we cannot afford to be paying huge amounts on fuel subsidy," Lamido said. " Every year, we offer bond to offset debt owed as a result of fuel subsidy. This subsidy regime is simply too expensive for us to maintain as a country." NNPC's Oniwon said the company is "gradually moving towards the full recovery of our vital-products pipelines, which were seriously damaged at the height of youth militancy and pipeline vandalism." He said the pipeline recovery has reduced haulage costs. Armed militants damaged oil and gas facilities including pipelines between 2006 and 2009 in the Niger Delta, home of nearly all Nigeria's crude. Oniwon said 60 % of petroleum products are transported through pipelines, adding "with the stability being enjoyed in the Niger Delta region occasioned by the post amnesty program of the federal government, the good old days are back in the oil and gas industry."

which way Nigeria, which way to go...i love my fatherland <hisses>! i believe me and my friends are the solution to this country!