The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, has said efforts are ongoing to ensure that the country end importation of petroleum products by June 2023.
Kyari who spoke while addressing a press conference at the state House in Abuja said the government is working towards revamping refineries in the country and raise the number of barrels produced per day in Nigeria.
According to him, the combination of outputs from the Dangote refinery and the national oil company’s four refineries would put an end to importation of petroleum products.
He noted that the Lagos-based 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery under construction would start producing petrol by the middle of next year, with a capacity of 50 million litres daily.
In his words, “This is very practical. As a matter of fact, when we are done with our own refineries and the Dangote refinery, there remain other small initiatives that we are doing, small modular condensate refineries that we are building.
“If that happens and we are very optimistic it will happen, you would see that this country will now be a net exporter.
“As a matter of fact, it will be a hub for the export of petroleum products, not just to the West African sub-region. This will happen. The flow of supply will change by the middle of next year, it will change. You will not need the importation of petroleum products into this country by the middle of next year.”
Kyari also lamented the vandalisation of oil pipelines, revealing the trend has become a menace in the country, with at least 295 illegal connections spotted on a 200 kilometer stretch of pipeline in one instance.
He explained that the recent spate of vandalism prompted the NNPC to shut down its entire network of pipelines conveying petroleum products nationwide, a development that meant that the country is unable to produce about 700,000 barrels.
“As you may be aware because of the very unfortunate acts of vandals along our major pipelines from Atlas Cove, all the way to Ibadan, and all others connecting all the 37 depots that we have across the country, none of them can take delivery of products today.
“The reason is very simple. For some of the lines, for instance, from Warri to Benin, we haven’t operated for 15 years. Every molecule of product that we put, gets lost. Do you remember the sad fire incident close to Sapele, that killed so many people? We had to shut it down, and as we speak, we have a high level of losses on our product pipeline.
“You remember in Lagos, when a fire outbreak happened on one of our pipelines? We discovered that some of the pipelines were actually connected to individuals’ homes. And not only that, with all sensitivity to our religious beliefs, some of the pipelines and some of the products that we found are in churches and mosques.
“When we say we are losing several 700,000 barrels of crude oil daily, we mean it. This is opportunity loss. There is no company that will produce oil and then you lose 80 percent of that and continue to produce the oil.
“So we deliberately shut down the pipelines whenever we see these infractions getting to a limit that we cannot manage. So that means as we speak today, we know for sure, there’s at least 700,000 barrels that we could have produced that we can’t because we cannot guarantee the safety of the pipeline,” he added.
