Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has declared that the federal government would hold the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) accountable for the complete rehabilitation of all the nation’s refineries, as scheduled, by the end of 2024.
Lokpobiri stated this at the weekend, while fielding questions from newsmen at the end of a three-day retreat for Ministers, Special Advisers and other presidential aides at the Conference Centre of the State House, Abuja.
NNPCL has the responsibility of rehabilitating three refineries in the country to reduce fuel scarcity and increase dependence on natural gas.
Recall that the Senate recently constituted an ad-hoc committee to investigate NNPCL over the N11.35 trillion spent on Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM) of the refineries.
The committee was meant to interrogate officials of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), NNPCL, and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) on the best approach to commercialising and ensuring profitability of the State-owned refineries.
Asked when the rehabilitation of the refineries would be completed, the minister explained, “Yes, on the rehabilitation of the refineries, if you could remember, was started by the previous administration; and as part of the president’s directive, I have gone round all the refineries; and from what they have briefed me, Port Harcourt has 3 phases; so, Phase-1 will be ready by the end of this year.
“I am not the one who is directly in charge of rehabilitation. It is the NNPCL; and they have told me and I am holding them accountable. For the Warri refinery, they said Phase-1 will be ready by the end of the year. Phases-2 and 3 in Port Harcourt will be ready next year, and the whole of Kaduna Refinery will be ready by the end of next year. That is what they said; and I am holding them accountable to their own words.
“I will be going there in the next few weeks; I will go there regularly; and sometimes without schedule, so that nobody plans for me. I just appear to see what is going on. I believe that those refineries, if we are able to achieve some level of rehabilitation by the end of this year, will also improve our domestic refining capacity. But that is not even the problem, Dangote refinery, too, is coming”.
Regarding the modular refineries, Lokpobiri said: “We have a lot of modular refineries that we have given licences; but the challenge has been the feedstock. Even if you have the modular refinery, do you have the crude to be able to refine?”
Lokpobiri further revealed that more modular refineries were being licenced by the present administration, but warned that the Government would not hesitate to revoke licences of under-utilised modular refineries.
According to the Minister, the easiest way to get out of the country’s fuel crisis is to increase crude production. He said by the end of 2023, the target crude oil production by the Federal Government was expected to rise to two million barrels per day.
