The Minister of State for Petroleum and Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ibe Kachikwu, said on Saturday that the Federal Government would require 700 million dollars to upgrade its refineries to produce at maximum capacities.
Speaking to journalists during the re-inauguration of the Port Harcourt/Bonny Crude Supply Line at the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Eleme, Rivers, he stated that the Federal Government has commenced the search for investors who would provide the required fund.
According to him, “we are not inviting foreign partners to take over the refineries; the total investment for that is up to $700 million and we don’t have that. Let us be honest about it”.
”So, the best thing to do is to find a very creative way to bring in investors, who will come in, work with our team here;
‘’Investors, who have the skills to reactivate and upgrade facilities in this place and help us provide technical support and we will pay through the flow-out of the refined products over time,” he said
Kachikwu emphasised that the motive of the Federal Government is to generate fund through partnership ”They are coming to provide funds to take our performance on these refineries to 90 percent and to provide us with technical skills.
”So, the areas of intervention will be funding and technical support,” he said.
He disclosed that the refineries were currently working at 60 percent capacity and producing 12 million litres of petrol daily which is not enough to meet the daily consumption of 45 million litres of petrol while the refineries would need to be upgraded to perform up to 90 per cent, which would result in the daily production of about 20 million litres of petrol and this would meet 50 percent of the daily petrol consumption of Nigerians.
He explained that the government had been able to recover and repair the two critical crude supply pipelines; which were Bonny/Port Harcourt and Escravos/Warri crude supply pipelines which were down for six to seven years but are now operational and supplying crude to the refineries.
”For the first time, the refineries will get their crude, pay for it; they will sell their products and they will earn the income from that product.
”And then, they can develop and continue to maintain the refineries even after this intervention is over.
”Port Harcourt is back in production, Warri is back in production; Kaduna today is receiving and will soon be back in production. It is something of joy,
”Lagos is easing off now from fuel scarcity and Abuja is doing the same thing; once Kaduna begins to produce, the North will see a lot of improvement.
”Over and above that, we are putting long term policies in place to ensure that while smaller marketers go out and do their stuff, we can then be the key suppliers for the rest of the country.” he stressed
He applauded the efforts of the workers and contractors at the Port Harcourt Refining Company adding that he had signed the promotion letters of the staff as they deserved to be rewarded.
Kachikwu also commended Nigerians for their resilience and patience and assured them of Federal Government’s proactive intervention aimed at alleviating their sufferings.
