10 June, 2017
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has said that Nigeria spent about N4.74 trillion on importation of petrol past year.
The minister said the cost of the project had been determined in terms of the extent of work required.
Nigeria spent a total of N4.74 trillion to import 20 million metric tonnes of fueI in 2016, representing approximately 30 per cent of the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN's) foreign exchange outlay in the same period, all due to low performance of its refineries.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources said the sum is an amount that is made up of N3.4trillion for the actual products and N1.34tn on logistics.
On domestic refining capacity, Kachikwu said the nation produced six million litres out of a total consumption of about 35 million litres per day.
He stated that the total cumulative amount to fix all the refineries was in the region of $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, inclusive of the cost of fixing the pipelines, as the government intends to repair the pipelines from the southern to the northern parts of the country and from Escravos to Warri. "We are not concessioning refineries, it is simply a financing package", he said. "And that, of course, does not include the pipelines", he said.
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He that government will not sell or concession Nigeria's oil refineries to private firms contrary to public speculations.
He, however, maintained that the tender process for financiers was truncated in May past year following concerns raised by the National Assembly and the Bureau of Public Enterprises. Dr. Kachikwu was speaking while addressing a press conference at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ...
With regard to the co-location of refineries, Kachikwu said that a public tender was announced in April previous year and that bids were received and analysed, while winners for the Port-Harcourt and Warri refineries have been identified. "The technical committee is still working on it and it has to go to the Federal Executive Council for approval before we move into throwing it open for interested parties".
