Nigeria's Warri oil refinery restarts after outage

ABUJA Jan 27 (Reuters) - Nigeria's state-oil company said on Thursday its Warri oil refinery, which was closed in December due to sabotage attacks to a feeding pipeline, had restarted operations.

"I can confirm to you that the Warri refinery is back and has commenced production of dual purpose kerosene and automotive gas oil since Sunday," a statement from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said.

On Dec. 22 NNPC said three of its four refineries were out of action due to militant pipeline sabotage but it did not specify when the outages began. [ID:nLDE6BL187]

Nigeria is Africa's largest crude oil exporter but it still imports around 85 percent of its fuel needs due to dilapidated infrastructure and inadequate refining capacity.

NNPC said there had been a recent tightness in supply and distribution of kerosene in some parts of Nigeria but it was taking measures to solve the problem.

"Nothing has changed about the quantity of kerosene that NNPC supplies to the market and we are bent on ensuring that the quantity supplied reaches the end user at least at all NNPC retail outlets and at the approved price," the statement said.

Nigeria will hold nationwide elections in April and the availability and price of fuel is a key issue for many potential voters living in Africa's most populous nation. (Reporting by Joe Brock; editing by Myra MacDonald)