From Our Correspondent
Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, has projected Nigeria will become a net exporter of petroleum products, come 2024.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, made this revelation during a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
Kyari said all the country’s refineries would be operational by December 2024.
NNPCL, he projected, will grow its revenue to N4.5 trillion at the end of 2023.
He added that management would complete the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refining Company next month (December).
“NNPCL now returns value to shareholders in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act,” he said.
Kyari declared that Nigeria was on track to stop the importation of refined petroleum products in 2024.
He explained that the refineries at Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt would soon begin operations.
Nigeria, he said all refineries would become fully operational, and that Nigeria “will become a net exporter of petroleum products by 2024”.
the NNPCL boss restated that by the end of December this year, the Port Harcourt refinery begin operation in the first quarter of 2024.
“We will start the Warri refinery and by the end of 2024, Kaduna refinery will come into operation.
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“This is the commitment we are giving today and you can hold us accountable for this.
“In 2024, many of the initiatives, including the rehabilitation of our refineries and also the efforts of small-scale refineries.
And the upcoming Dangote refinery will make Nigeria a net exporter of petroleum products, Kyari promised.
During the meeting, Speaker Abbas called for the privatisation of the nation’s oil refineries to address the perennial crisis bedevilling the oil sector.
He described the state of the refineries as shameful, adding that NNPCL workers’ work hours in the last 20 years could be less than a month. “Yet the government paid, promoted and cared for them.”
He said there was a need to make the refineries have multi-dimensional uses.
“If there is no crude oil, are there other activities that can make the workers active so that what they earn is deserved?
“I need you and your management to look at how we can turn around these decades of losses.
“One way to do so is to find a way to privatise these refineries. We have spent so much money and time deceiving ourselves that some businesses can be run by the government.
“In the case of the refineries, we have now realised that some sectors of NNPCL business can only be handled by the private sector. And our refineries are one of those,” Abbas said.
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