The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, said the country will still rely on 75 per cent importation of fuel throughout the whole of next year.
Group Managing Director NNPC and Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, stated this during his tour of Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company, KRPC.
According to him, “the future is that, Nigeria is still going to import fuel in 2016 and beyond. Best case situation is 25 per cent local and 75 per cent importation. Worse case is what we are experiencing now.
“Until we begin to get individuals who can co-relocate, we are going to be doing a mixture of local and importation of fuel to meet up demands. In the next few weeks, however, queues will disappear in fuel stations.”
The minister affirms that the Kaduna refinery, in no time, will be producing more than two million litres per day capacity as soon as an Fluid Catalytic Cracking, FCC, unit is fully on stream.
He said: “We need to get it back to re-kit it to work well. We will do that with some level of production going on. Our concern is to have a consistent production and provision of products at all times.”
On subsidy and pricing, Kachikwu said: “We will not be fluctuating prices, we will take an average. Today no subsidy, in January we will look at the situation and announce it.”
On privatization, he said: “President Muhammadu Buhari has not approved any policy about selling the refineries.” Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
FROM MY OWN PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE PRESENT SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR CRUDE OIL, 25 % IS TOO LOW FOR THE ANTICIPATED LOCAL PRODUCTION. THE LOCAL PRODUCTION SHOULD BE AT LEAST 40 % IN ORDER TO SEE THE REFLECTION ON THE ECONOMY. I WOULD STRONGLY SUGGEST A MORE AGGRESSIVE APPROACH ON THE PART OF THE MINISTER. THE ENGAGEMENT OF INTERESTED AND GENUINE INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS OR CONSULTANTS WILL SURELY GO ALONG WAY TO ENHANCING THE PRODUCTION LEVEL TO AT LEAST 40 TO 45 PER CENT. I REALIZE THE COMPLEXITY THAT SURROUND THE ENGAGEMENT OF FOREIGN PARTNERS, BUT THE EXHIBITION OF A CLEARLY DEFINED CONTRACT WILL GO ALONG WAY TO PERSUADE FOREIGN CONSULTANTS TO COOPERATE. FURTHERMORE, IF CORRUPTION IS NO MORE A BARRIER, NO DOUBT, THE MINISTER WILL HAVE NO FEAR IN SECURING GENUINE FOREIGN CONSULTANTS.
ReplyDelete