This was not what was disclosed to the public about the refinery during lunching. It was said that operation will start immediately and the first batch of crude oil will be supplied to the refinery by June. But if what you’ve said is true, then we could face another shortage of petroleum products if we don’t have enough in stock that were already refined to be used till October 2023.
We may not experience a shortage in petroleum supplies since the government have issued license to private pms importars which means the petroleum importation market is now a free market and anyone can now import petroleum products and sell at an unregulated price which means the market forces will determine the price of the petrol, unlike during subsidy where only the NNPC is the sole importers and the DPPR set the price where government settled subsidy difference.
What we should look out for where there is free market flow!
Take Bitcoin for example, the market force determine bitcoin price so when the demands exceed the availability it will result into the high price for the scarcely available product, and if there is a surplus of supplies it then means there will be a price crash since the products exceed the demand so it both ways.
But in this situation, there is going to be the availability of the petroleum product since the importation is now a free market and the government issues licenses to any individual or private company who wants to import the product.