Damilola Timilehin
Mele Kyari has revealed that the Port Harcourt refinery will take off in December 2023.
He said this while meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas on Thursday, November 23.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited said the rehabilitation of the state-run refineries is ongoing and that by December 2024 Nigeria would stop petrol imports.
He said: “I can confirm to you that by the end of December this year, we will start the Port Harcourt refinery; early in the first quarter of 2024, we will start the Warri refinery and by the end of 2024, the Kaduna refinery will come into operation.
“This is the commitment we are giving today, and you can hold us accountable for this. In 2024, many of the initiatives including the rehabilitation of our refineries and also the efforts of small-scale refineries, and the upcoming Dangote refinery, will make Nigeria a net exporter of petroleum products in 2024.
“We will no longer be talking about fuel importation by the end of 2024. I am very optimistic that this will crystallize.”
Meanwhile, Tajudeen Abbass called for the privatization of refineries due to the fact that some businesses are not meant to be run by the government.
He said: “There is a need to make these refineries have multi-dimensional uses. If there is no crude oil, are there other activities that can make the workers active so that what they earn is deserved? I need you and your management to look at how we can turn around these decades of losses.
“One way to do so is to find a way to privatize these refineries. We have spent so much money and time deceiving ourselves that some businesses can be run by the government.
“In the case of the refineries, we have now realized that some sectors of NNPCL business can only be handled by the private sector and our refineries are one of those.
“The inadequacies will become manifest as soon as the Dangote refinery comes on board because the competition will be there, and inefficiencies of the refineries will become more naked.”
In August 2023, the National Assembly announced that it would probe the alleged N11.3 trillion expenditure by the Federal Government on Nigeria’s refineries’ turn-around maintenance between 2010 and 2020.
According to the House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Public Accounts, there is concern over the deplorable state of Nigeria’s refineries despite the significant amount of money spent on their maintenance over the past decade.
