Minister of state for petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, has said Nigeria will continue to import fuel in 2016 and beyond despite the coming on stream of the nation’s refineries.
Kachikwu had said that Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri refineries would be in full capacity in first quarter of 2016. According to him, Kaduna refinery is already producing about 1.5 million litres a day, while Port Harcourt will commence production of about 2 million litres a day by next week, Warri is expected to start early next year.
Speaking on Sunday when he visited the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), the minister said, Kachikwu“We are still going to be importing, even if you are in 100 percent capacity production of about 445,000 barrels capacity for the plant, you will still be doing less than 2 million litres, consumption is even at best with all we have done moving it from 50 to 40, it is still 50 percent.
”So, until we begin to get individuals who can co-relocate new refineries within the premises of existing refineries to expand the capacity, that’s the best way to go. And that is the only way we are going to be committed to it.
“We are looking for investors who have the capacity, the speed and the time to be able to accomplish on that. But until we do that, we are going to be doing a mixture.
“Best case situation is a 25 to 40 percent of local production and the rest being imported, worst case situation is what we have seen in the last few months of 100 percent importation.”
He also said he directed the refineries to look at the commercial view of their plants in order to use every arm of the refinery to generate profit.
“A typical refinery will look at their looms, the petrochemical areas, will look at their power areas and see how they can probably expand the value chain and the potentials, that’s certainly what we are looking at,” Kachikwu said.
He expressed confidence that the queues in the filling station would end in the next two weeks, noting “some of these factors are not in anybody’s control, one of the thing I want people to understand is that NNPC is not setup to be a hundred percent importer for the country.
“We are a last intervention force, that is what we are and this business should be run by marketers who make money out of it, bringing their products, selling their stations. It is not the business of NNPC really to be providing them hundred percent capacity but because there was over one year delay in payment of subsidy.
“Because of the excess challenges that marketers have had, NNPC has have to rap up on the forty percent to about eighty percent capacity right now. And with that comes also with the responsibility in terms of distribution, in terms of clearing and other related issues.
“And bad pipeline are not exactly helping matters so it been huge amount of work we have to do in the last nine weeks just keeping people on the roads, I personally never had window of three hours to sleep over that period. Now we have been able to clear some of them but there is still a lot more work to be done. “
