NNPC asks Nigerians to wait till 2023 to have functional refineries

The lingering operational problems of the three refineries owned  by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation will continue well into 2023, the NNPC has said.

Nigeria’s refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna have been dormant for several years.

Mele Kyari, NNPC group managing director, in a television programme  on Sunday in Abuja, spoke about the difficulty of running commercially viable refineries.

Kyari spoke alongside the minister of state for petroleum resources, Timipre Syla, in a virtual dialogue during the programme.

The NNPC boss said private investors would work with the corporation to fix the refineries, adding that the model adopted in the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company could be used for refineries.

“In this model, NNPC is going to be the minority partner in the refineries,” he said.

Kyari said the refineries were currently dormant, but noted that the oil firm was working hard to get them back to life in order to begin domestic refining of crude.

On his part, Sylva said the National Assembly would get and possibly begin work in earnest on the Petroleum Industry Bill in two weeks.

He expressed hopes that the bill, which had dragged for years without being passed, would become law under the current administration.

The minister insisted that the downstream oil sector had been deregulated and that petrol price would be determined by global crude oil prices.