Reactivation of Refineries Will Help End Aviation Fuel Scarcity – Aviation Minister

The Nigerian Government has expressed hope that the Port Harcourt refinery as well as the newly built Dangote refinery when fully operational, will end the perennial scarcity of aviation fuel (JET A1).

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, stated this while fielding questions from State House Correspondents, after he led the Secretary General of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Mr Juan Carlos Salazar, and his delegation to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari, at the presidential villa, Abuja.

The Minister who reiterated that the high cost and scarcity of Jet A1 in Nigeria is linked to the high demand for crude oil, and the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war, said Nigeria is not the only country hit by the crisis.

In the past few weeks, domestic airlines have complained about the spike in the price of aviation fuel and had threatened to withdraw their services.

Speaking on plans to address the scarcity, Sirika said: “the scarcity and high cost of Jet A1 in civil aviation is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global phenomenon driven by many factors. Some of them include low capacity to refine the product.

“It is also in high demand around the world. There are increased number of airplanes and users of this jet A1. Plus also the Ukraine crisis and many more. It’s a time when crude itself is so expensive.

“I did address the press a couple of days ago, saying that, by the grace of God, perhaps once the Dangote refinery is online or if the government fixes the Port Harcourt refinery, which is now ongoing, we will begin to refine this product and sell it.

“As a stop-gap measure, there’s an agreement that the airline operators of Nigeria should nominate either from out of themselves or from other major oil marketers to be given the opportunity to import this product. Then also get the necessary foreign exchange for that purpose. That will increase more supply and perhaps drive down the cost.

“So this is not unique to Nigeria. And unfortunately we’re going through this phase, but civil aviation from time always survives challenges. They come unfortunately but then you see civil aviation graphs keeps going up.

“We hope that this is a temporary thing around the world and we hope that Jet A1 will be available everywhere and at a very good price. And we hope in the future, we will learn to do away with all these carbon emitters and have much more cleaner energy, made available for everybody at cheaper cost so as to make civil Aviation transportation, the preferred choice,” he said.

Emmanuel Ukoh