The Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mallam Mele Kyari, said the Nigeria would end importation of petroleum products by June 2023.
Kyari made the declaration yesterday during a media briefing at the State House, Abuja.
Kyari said the Dangote refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day would start producing petrol by the middle of next year, with a capacity of 50 million litres daily.
Kyari noted that the combination of outputs from the Dangote refinery and the nation’s oil company’s four refineries would, “eliminate any importation of petroleum products into this country. Even if all our four refineries in three locations are operating at 90 per cent of installed capacity, they will only be able to raise 18 million litres of petrol. That means, even if all of them are working today, you would still have a net deficit of premium motor spirit (PMS) to import into this country,” he said.
Kyari explained that as Nigeria’s population and demand grew, so would the amount of petrol consumed in the country.
He restated that the NNPC owns 20 per cent equity of Dangote Refinery and has first right of refusal to supply crude oil to the plant.
But we saw this energy transition challenge coming. We knew that a time will come where you would look for people to buy your crude and you will not find. And that means we have locked down ability to sell crude oil for 33,000 barrels minimum by right for the next 20 years and by right also we have access to 20 percent of the production from that plant,” Kyari explained.
The NNPCL boss informed guests that the Lagos-based 650,000 barrels per day Dangote refinery under construction would start production by mid next year, with a capacity of 50 million litres per day, adding that, “the combination of that and our ability to bring back our refinery will eliminate any importation of petroleum products into this country next year. You would not see any importation into this country next year. “This is very practical. As a matter of fact, when we are done with our own refineries and the Dangote refinery, there remain other small initiatives that we are doing, small modular condensate refineries that we are building.”
“If that happens and we are very optimistic it will happen, you would see that this country will now be a net exporter. As a matter of fact, it will be a hub for the export of petroleum products, not just to the West African sub-region. This will happen. The flow of supply will change by the middle of next year, it will change. You will not need the importation of petroleum products into this country by the middle of next year.”
Kyari alleged that stolen crude oil products are now stored in worship places such as churches and mosques, with the consent of religious leaders.
He lamented that the stealing of crude oil had become widespread across several aspects of society. He revealed that at least 295 illegal connections were spotted on a 200 kilometer stretch of pipeline.
Kyari said, “As you may be aware because of the very unfortunate acts of vandals along our major pipelines from Atlas Cove, all the way to Ibadan, and all others connecting all the 37 depots that we have across the country, none of them can take delivery of products today.”
“The reason is very simple. For some of the lines, for instance, from Warri to Benin, we haven’t operated for 15 years. Every molecule of product that we put, gets lost. Do you remember the sad fire incident close to Sapele, that killed so many people? We had to shut it down, and as we speak, we have a high level of losses on our product pipeline. You remember in Lagos, when a fire outbreak happened on one of our pipelines? We discovered that some of the pipelines were actually connected to individuals’ homes. And not only that, with all sensitivity to our religious beliefs, some of the pipelines and some of the products that we found are in churches and mosques.”
He added that the spate of vandalism prompted the NNPC to shut down the entire network of pipelines conveying petroleum products nationwide.
“When we say we are losing several 700,000 barrels of crude oil daily, we mean it. This is opportunity loss. There is no company that will produce oil and then you lose 80 percent of that and continue to produce the oil. So we deliberately shut down the pipelines whenever we see these infractions getting to a limit that we cannot manage. So that means as we speak today, we know for sure, there’s at least 700,000 barrels that we could have produced that we can’t because we cannot guarantee the safety of the pipeline.”