Mr Kragha Anibor, NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Refineries disclosed this at a panel session at the ongoing Nigerian International Petroleum summit (NIPS), on Wednesday, in Abuja.
The panel discussed the topic Refining, Transportation and petrochemical.
He said that the major problem of the corporation to bring the refineries to work was funding adding that government had continued to ensure the best way to manage the refineries.
He said that government would not sell off the refineries without putting them in a shape that financiers would be able to come in to fund the revamping for them to operate optimally.
He said that the Port Harcourt refinery had its last Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) in 2000, Warri in 2004 and Kaduna in 2008.
He said that government would continue to ensure adequate and best agreement with investors for the refineries to ensure the best for the industry.
Commenting on the growing refining gap, he said that the Nations fuel needs would be 45 million litres per day by 2025.
He projected that when the refineries are in good shape they will be producing about 22.5 million litres per day.
He added that Dangote refinery coming on stream would be producing about 53 million litres per day which when added to the one from our refineries would be over the daily needs of the country.
He assured that efforts were on to ensure that Port Harcourt refinery would be up and running by 2020.
We have contacted the original builders and they will soon come to start work, he said.
But in his comment, Mr Chidi Izuwah, the Director-General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), said that concessioning the refineries was the best way to get them working.
He said that the NNPC must embrace full concession model to tackle the problems with the refineries.
The government must play the role in bringing the private sector in the downstream to help the country benefit from the oil and gas sector, he said.
Also, Mr Bankole Soyode of the Dangote group said that refining was not a big thing for Nigeria adding that the NNPC must find a way to get the refineries working.
He said that the corporation must reactivate, upgrade, follow the industry standard, add new technology to help the nation make money from the refineries.
He said that there was nothing extraordinary with the Dangote refinery producing 650,000 barrel of oil per day as the nation in the 1970s had produced 1,000,000 barrel per day.
In his comment,
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