Two of Nigeria's refineries to restart production before end of December, 2015 – Ibe Kachikwu

Earlier today, Wednesday, Dec. 16th, the Minister
of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu,
assures that two out of Nigeria's four refineries
will restart production in the next two weeks




This is contained in a statement signed by Ohi
Alegbe, Group General Manager, Group Public
Affairs Division, NNPC, on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said the Nigerian Petroleum Development
Company (NPDC) equity production was 99,000
barrels per day.
He added that the declining Joint Venture
reserves were due to inadequate and low
investment in the oil assets.
The minister noted that issue of funding which
had been identified as a major challenge to the
sector would be addressed with adequate
collaboration with the private and international
investors.
Kacikwu said the average gas to power
generation was about 3,000 megawatts and
domestic gas supply of one billion standard
cubic feet (scf) with the contribution of 600
million standard cubic feet from NPDC.
On the current state of the refineries, he said
that two of the refineries might be re-streamed
before the end of December.
''Efforts are on to engage private investors to
build new refineries within the old ones to
enable the refineries share power, pipelines and
other resources.'' He said.
He added that the new agenda for the Oil and
Gas Industry would be centered on having the
right people, doing the right things, at the right
time.
This, he said, would be for the right purpose to
yield the right results.
Kachikwu said the petroleum sector, under his
watch, would ensure that the Nigeria Content
policy would transform the Oil and Gas industry
into the economic engine for job creation and
national growth.
He said he was obliged to cancel the Offshore
Processing Agreements (OPAs), crude-for-
products-exchange arrangement (popularly
known swap) and other unprofitable product and
crude arrangements, all in a bid to avoid rent
seekers.
He said the cancellation would help to add value
to the Nigerian hydrocarbon resources.
On the downstream sector, the minister
advocated for the introduction of a private
sector model that would reinvigorate the
efficient supply and distribution of petroleum
products, especially in the area of pipeline
assets.
''The menace of pipeline vandalism has led to
huge losses of crude and petroleum products;
27,967 incidents of pipeline vandalism were
recorded in the last few years.'' He said .