The Federal Government needs about $500m to fix the nation’s crude oil refineries which have all been shut down.
This was said by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, on Saturday at a forum organised by the Petroleum Club Lagos to celebrate his recent appointment as the NNPC GMD.
Kachikwu said the Port Harcourt Refinery, which was refining crude some weeks ago had stopped working, and had since been shut down.
Meanwhile the Warri and Kaduna refineries still remain shut.
Lamenting the state of the refineries, he said, “I was initially happy with the progress made at the Port Harcourt Refinery when it operated at 60 per cent capacity some weeks ago. But now, the capacity has dropped so low that we had to shut it down. We will need about $500m to fix them.”
He admitted that importation of petroleum products was not the solution to Nigeria’s problem, stressing that attention should be shifted from Nigerians wanting to get allocations for product importation to seeking ways to adding value to the system.
He said the NNPC had not dropped the idea of conducting forensic audit on its account books.
According to Kachikwu, the NNPC is currently talking with states to see how they can contribute towards driving the modular refining model.
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