The Federal Government (FG) has postponed the date scheduled for the nation to stop the importation of petrol from 2019 to 2023.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is currently the only importer of petrol into the country, had earlier disclosed in February 2017, through the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, that Nigeria would stop importing refined petroleum products by 2019.
“By 2019, we should be able to exit completely the importation of petroleum products in this country,” Kachikwu said.
However, the initial date announced seems unrealistic as the current Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mele Kyari, on Friday released a new date of 2023 for the country to stop the importation of refined petroleum products.
“For a country that has been producing oil for over 50 years, it is really a difficulty to explain why we are still importing petroleum products.
“We have a clear mandate of Mr President to stop this and we believe this can be done between now and 2023. It is not a political deadline; it is a realistic technical deadline that we can deliver,” said Mele Kyari.
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The NNPC GMD stated that the delivery of functional refineries and support partners on projects that would make petrol available across the country within the projected time is important to the Buhari’s administration. strategy the state-owned oil company would be using to achieve this goal.
According to ChannelsTV report, he added that the plan is to deliver 20 million litres of petrol when completed.
“First, we will deliver on our refineries to make them work and significant work has gone into that and we believe that we can deliver on this.
“Secondly, we will support our partners to deliver on their projects that will make gasoline (petrol) and other products available, which are essentially the many other refinery project interventions that are going on that we know and we support all of them.”
Meanwhile, according to World Top Exports, Nigeria is the 9th largest exporter of crude oil, valued at $43.6 billion. Nigeria accounts for 3.8% of the world crude oil supply.
