Business
NNPC Won’t Sell Refineries – Kachikwu
Contrary to insinuations
that authorities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) plan to sell the government-owned refineries, the Group Managing Director Dr Ibe Kachikwu said Nigeria’s refineries would not be sold.
According to the NNPC GMD, joint venture partners with established track records of success in refining would be invited to support the running of the refineries.
Kachikwu disclosed this recently during an official tour of the Okrika Jetty and the Port Harcourt Refineries.
He also revealed that NNPC would soon commence unbundling of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited (PPMC) into three different companies.
The NNPC boss explained that the PPMC would be split into a pipelines company that would focus primarily on the maintenance of the over 5,000 kilometers pipelines of the corporation; a storage company that would maintain the 23 depots and a product marketing company that would market and sell petroleum products.
According to him, the move would ensure that the right set of skills are positioned and the number of leakages in terms of pipeline breaks and products loss are reduced to the bearest minimum..
He said the ongoing rehabilitation of all the state-owned refineries would be given an accelerated vigour to reduce product importation into the country, remarking that at full capacity, all the refineries could supply only 20 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) on daily basis.
Kachikwu disclosed that efforts are in top gear to fix all the crude and petroleum products pipelines across the country, adding that the Nigerian Air Force, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, and Police would be engaged to provide aerial survey of the pipelines, engineering and marine surveillance for the network of pipelines.
In his reaction, the Managing Director of the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Dr Bafred Audu Enjugu said the ongoing rehabilitation of the company costs a little less than $10 million, and that the job was holistically carried out by indigenous engineers without any foreign support.
Chris Oluoh