In the last one year, the country has spent about N4.74tn on
the importation of petroleum products, an amount that is made up of N3.4tn for
the actual products and N1.34tn on logistics.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe
Kachikwu, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, said,
“The importation of petroleum products between January and December of last
year amounted to about 20 million metric tonnes. A total amount of N3.4tn was
spent.
“The consumption of foreign exchange from the Central Bank
of Nigeria was approximately 30 per cent of the CBN’s total foreign exchange
outlay, and the logistic cost of that importation was about N1.34tn within the
same one year period.”
Explaining why the country must end the importation of
refined petroleum products, he added, “The domestic refining capacity as of
today is six million litres out of a total consumption of about 35 million
litres, averaging less than 25 per cent.
“In the midst of this sort of statistics, it is absolutely
critical that we move in to try to end importation of products, improve our
refineries and get them up to 100 per cent nameplate.”
The minister also said the government had neither given out
any of the refineries to private investors as concessions nor had disposed
them.
According to him, no financier has been selected to revamp
the refineries as the government is still searching.
He also stated that the Federal Government would require
about $1.2bn to repair and bring the four refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri
and Kaduna up to 100 per cent production level.
Kachikwu said, “Internally, we have been able to determine
the sort of amount that will be required to do this work in terms of what work
is really required to be done. The total cumulative amount is in the $1.1bn and
$1.2bn category between all the refineries.
“And that, of course, does not include the pipelines. You
have got to address the pipelines and that is something else that is being
done.”
He stated that so far, no financier had been selected for
the refineries as planned, adding that what had happened was that
advertisements were placed in some national and international newspapers in
April last year seeking financiers to fund, rehabilitate and jointly operate
the refineries.
This, the minister said, was in order to increase the
capacity utilisation of the facilities and that nowhere in those adverts was it
stated that there would be a transfer of the assets to any eventual successful
financier.
Kachikwu, however, stated that the tender process for
financiers was truncated in May last year following concerns raised by the
National Assembly and the Bureau of Public Enterprises.
The concerns, according to him, were thrashed out and an
understanding was reached that the rehabilitation process would not adversely
impact any future Federal Government’s privatisation initiative.
He noted that following the understanding that was reached
by the parties, a presidential approval was granted the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation in October to engage credible financiers to rehabilitate
and improve the performance of the refineries.
He stated that three possible partners, Agip, Saudis and
Qataris were initially identified for engagement.
The minister said the government also indicated that it
would invite the original builders for the
refineries to undertake the repairs.
With regard to the co-location of refineries, Kachikwu
stated that a public tender was announced in April last year and bids were
received and analysed, adding that winners for the Port Harcourt and Warri
refineries had been identified.
He stated that discussions on the issue were still ongoing
to finalise the process, with approval to be given by both the NNPC Board and
the Federal Executive Council.
0 comments:
Post a Comment