Global shift to cleaner fuels to render Nigeria’s refineries obsolete

Nigeria’s three refineries are already in advanced stages of decay, but what will finally do them in, seems to be a world where cleaner energy becomes a necessity in order to meet sustainable development goals.

Performing at a paltry 10 capacity utilisation, the NNPC, continues to map out ambitious strategies to revamp them when actually they should be selling them off as scraps. Since the days of Turn-Around-Maintenance, Nigeria’s unfortunate refineries have become easy way to explain difficult expenditures.

Meanwhile, the new threat to these refineries is that their output, however limited, will not meet future specifications in a low carbon future the world is heading to in line with the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.

The quality of refined products from Nigeria’s refineries is making a case scrapping them. In Europe the trend is towards low sulphur content of gasoline to reduce emissions standards and the countries are setting regulations requiring gasoline to have sulphur content of not more than 10 parts per million.

In Nigeria, refined petroleum products are produced with sulphur content of more than 3,000 parts per million and is a major factor in the thick smoke that exhausts pipe of vehicles emit.

The diesel produced in Nigeria’s refineries are about 700 parts per million, this is not suitable for the low carbon future that is currently in transition. The refineries that will survive in future are those that will produce low sulphur content in keeping with clean energy trends.

Interestingly, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria have reduced the maximum allowed levels of Sulphur in Petroleum fuels in Nigeria from July 1, 2017 but the standards are largely being ignored.

SON stipulates that diesel fuel (AGO) should have maximum Sulphur levels of 50 parts per million while premium motor spirit (petrol) should have maximum sulphur levels of 150 ppm.

This is due to the fact that petroleum fuels that have high sulphur levels generate directly high emission levels in automotive engines. Such vehicle emissions contain high level of toxic pollutants such as benzenes and particulates that have negative impacts on human health and on the environment.

This situation is at variance with Nigeria’s commitment to clean energy. In 2015, Nigeria joined over 190 countries in signing the Paris Accord which seeks to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The agreement also seeks to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives.

The Paris Agreement requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts.

These refineries would negate Nigeria’s clean energy ambition and will continue to endanger new vehicles imported into the country. Modern vehicles require fuels that meet high quality standards for a more efficient operation of their engines.

ISAAC ANYAOGU