The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says the Port Harcourt refinery will begin operations in early August.
Mele Kyari, NNPC’s group chief executive officer (GCEO),
said the operationalisation of the refinery is one of the emerging indicators
in the energy and gas sector that Nigeria would become a net exporter of
petroleum products by December.
Kyari spoke on Monday at the national assembly when economic
stakeholders appeared before the senate committee on finance led by Sani Musa,
a lawmaker.
The NNPC GCEO said in a few months time, oil production
level for the country would hit 2 million barrels per day (bpd) as all
enablement towards this has already been put in place.
The oil and gas industry, according to Kyari, is very
critical in bringing a turnaround in the current economic situation and “we
understand the importance of this”.
“We have already seen growth in our oil and gas production
because of certain actions that Mr. President personally took, and also the
very mere truth that we have also declared a war on production activities, and
this is yielding the required results,” he said.
“The combination of these two has now seen us restoring
production in our country, and we believe that, as the Honorable minister has
said, we will soon hit the target of 2
million barrels oil production per day.
“Specific to NNPC refineries, we have spoken to a number of
your committees, that it is impossible to have the Kaduna refinery come to
operation before December, it will get
to December, both Warri and Kaduna; but that of Portharcourt will commence
production early August this year.”
Kyari had said the refinery would begin production by the
end of March, but this has not happened.
Recall that the president recently expressed concerns over
the NNPC’s failure to deliver critical projects including the Port Harcourt
refinery.
But Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for petroleum
resources (oil), said such projects often take time, adding that the refinery
is at its final rehabilitation stage.
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