07 November 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has reiterated the determination of the Federal Government to exit petroleum importation by 2019, stating that within the remaining part of this year and in 2019, the government would focus on addressing its refining challenges.
“To the big picture of 2018 and early 2019, what are the key things we are going to focus on? First is the refineries, I have talked about this over again, it is important that we get these refineries working,” he said in a podcast in Abuja.
“We must exit importation in 2019, and we are happy Dangote is working very hard and bringing back the timeline for the completion of his refinery,” the minister added in reference to the $12 billion, 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery being built by Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote in Lagos.
Kachikwu noted that with the coming on stream of the Dangote refinery and Nigeria’s ending of fuel importation in 2019, the nation would be saving “over 30 per cent of forex application on importing petroleum products.”
Continuing, he said: “We were able to exit the joint venture cash call. Still a bit of things to be ironed out there, but for the first time, multinationals began to have belief in their need to invest in the country.
“The amount of investment requests we are seeing from joint venture cash call members is today in excess of $14 billion – $15 billion, which are for purposes of projects like Zabazaba, Bonga extension programmes and all that. Multinationals are beginning to have confidence that this system is working”.