In what seems to be a relief to the worsening petrol crisis in the nation, the Minister of state for Petroleum resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has disclosed that two of Nigeria’s refineries will resune production in the next two weeks.
He made this disclosure at the National Assembly on Wednesday while making a presentation titled “The Roadmap for Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Sector,’Kachikwu expressed confidence that two of the refineries would be re-streamed for production before the end of the year.
On assumption of duty as Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Kachikwu had set December 2015 deadline for the four refineries at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna to become fully functional to guarantee uninterrupted fuel supply in the country. But it seems meeting this deadline is no more achievable.
While speaking with the Senators, the Minister said“Available reports before me indicate that two of the refineries may be re-streamed before the end of December, 2015,”
The GMD suggested that a permanent solution was found to the perennial fuel scarcity problem the country has been facing and that efforts were being made to engage private investors to build new refineries in the country.
He said these refineries would be situated within the premises of the current ones to enable them benefit from the economy of scale, by sharing some operational facilities, such as pipelines, power and other resources within its vicinity.
