Oscarline Onwuemenyi
11 March 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed that the Federal Government requires about $500 million to fix the four refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna for effective service delivery.
Kachikwu who doubles as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, stated this while answering questions from the Joint House of Representatives Standing Committee on Gas Resources, Petroleum (Downstream and Upstream) and Local Content, chaired by Hon. Victor Nwokolo, over Tuesday’s announcement to restructure the NNPC into seven main divisions and 20 sub-set companies.
The Minister assured that the restructuring of NNPC will help in achieving 16 to 18-month self-sufficiency in the supply of petroleum products as well as the establishment of the modular type refineries by investors as contained in the recent advert placed by the Corporation.
Kachikwu noted that when the 650,000 refinery planned by Dangote Group comes on stream by 2020, it would boost domestic refining capacity, adding that the policy was to drive the oil marketers to invest in the industry going forward.
He further explained that 17 subsidiaries of NNPC had been identified and that additional four had been created, noting that the administrative restructuring would help in generating more jobs and enhancing the profitability and efficiency of various sub-sets of the Corporation, including gas and power, property, pipeline and refineries, among others.
Kachikwu noted that 70 per cent of the N350 billion loss incurred by the Corporation came from PPMC, and said that plans are underway to adopt Public Private Partnership, PPP, in the bid to boost the viability of the NNPC subsidiaries, including shipping company and medical centres.
At the meeting, the lawmakers and the Minister resolved to work harmoniously towards the timely passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.
The minister, who acknowledged the existence of a communication gap between his office and the National Assembly, noted that the concerns of the lawmakers were legitimate.
He, however, added that the “unbundling (of NNPC) was used to qualify the sub-sets,” otherwise called “divisions”, and not separate companies as would have been applicable to the actual unbundling of the Corporation as stipulated in the PIB.
