It remains a mystery why Nigeria keeps importing fuel —NNPC boss, Kyari 

The failure to fix Nigeria’s refineries over the years is essentially a strategy problem, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has said.

He stated during a virtual chat with Atlantic Council, an American international affairs think thank group, on Friday that it remained a mystery why an oil-producing nation would be a net importer of petroleum products.

“The reason is simple: we could not fix our refineries and that is very difficult to explain. Why can’t we fix our refineries? We started this very many years ago. However, all attempts to fix our refineries failed for very simple reasons and that was a strategy problem.

“First, we did not know what we wanted to do with it. We did not get the right advisory, the right strategy to go through this. We have started the process few years ago to get the original refinery builders to help us build it. That is not their job. It is just like buying a car and saying Toyota must come and recycle, that is not how it’s going to work.”

Read also: Oil prices rise on hopes of fuel demand recovery, Bonny Light sheds 1.92%

He, however, noted that Nigeria had embraced a paradigm shift in its strategy in order to allow a new framework.

“This framework would enable others to help us – investors to put their monies into it and all. Ultimately, we would change that equation and that is very simple. We would set a target for ourselves and have a clear strategy for achieving it,” Kyari said.

The NNPC boss added that the state-owned corporation would build condensate refineries.

“At least, by July, we would have one of them. We are eyeing a production capacity of about 200,000 bpd per day and the first one would be about 50,000 bpd per day. This would boost capacity.

“We also have the Dangote refinery, which would deliver 650,000 bpd capacity. The combination of all these will make the country sufficient in the supply of finished petroleum product,” he said.

Opinions