By Mohammad Ibrahim
Kaduna (Nigeria) — Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu announced that by next year the country’s major refinaries are expected to produce 10 millon liter a day.
According to him, Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refinaries will commence full capacity production by fiirst quarter of 2016.
The Minister who disclosed this while in Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) on oversight visit.
He explained that Kaduna refinery is already producing about 1.5million litres a day, while Port Harcourt will commence production of about 2 million litres a by next week, Warri is expected to start early next year.
Kachikwu said the country’s refineries are not obsolete as being speculated in some quarters.
“Nigerian Refineries are not up to, 40 years while in the United States of America there are oil refinery that are 60 years old and still functioning,” he said.
The minister also pointed out that, even if the refineries began full capacity production the country will continue importing fuel.
“We are still going to be importing, even if you are in hundred percent capacity production of about four hundred and forty five thousand barrels capacity for the plant you will still be doing less than two million litres, consumption is even at best with all we have done moving it from fifty to forty it is still 50 percent.
”So until we begin to get individuals who can co-relocate new refineries within the premises of existing refineries to expand the capacity, that’s the best way to go.
“And that is the only way we are going to be committed to it. We are looking for investors who have the capacity, the speed and the time to be able to accomplish on that.
“But until we do that, we are going to be doing a mixture. Best case situation is a twenty five to forty percent of local production and the rest being imported, worst case situation is what we have seen in the last few months of hundred percent importation.” He said.
The Minister also said that he directed the refineries to look at the commercial view of their plants in to use every arm of the refinery to generate profit.
“A typical refinery will look at their looms, the petrochemical areas, will look at their power areas and see how they can probably expand the value chain and the potentials, that’s certainly what we are looking at,” he said.
On the disappearance of queues in filling stations across the country Kachikwu expressed confidence that the queues in the filling station will end in the next two weeks.
