The Federal Government has said that it has no money to fix the nation’s refineries.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the cabinet meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The minister stated that he had given all the guidance required to fix the refineries.
He said the government had to raise money through a Public-Private Partnership model.
He stated: “As a seasoned professional, I have given all the guidance that is required to fix the refineries. We came into a situation where we don’t have money to fix the refineries. We had to raise the money looking into the PPP model; it has to go through a process.
“The technical committee is headed by the NNPC. Obviously they’ll submit their report to the board when they complete their work. So, from a governance and guidance sense, steering point of view, I think that steering is right on track, from a management of the technical aspect of the contracting, that is something we would have to allow NNPC handle, it is not the job of the ministry to superimpose, you’ve got to let them do their work and do it efficiently.”
Kachikwu also said that the proposed modular refineries in Delta and Rivers States were not meant to address the current refining gap.
“On modular refineries; modular wasn’t supposed to provide a sufficient solution to your product needs, modulars are on the average between 2,000 and 5,000 maybe 10,000 at most capacity per refinery. Your consumption is about 630,000 barrels per day, that is not the essence of modular, what modular was supposed to do for us is provide work within some of these communities where people are busy doing illegal refining.
“It’s not meant to address the refining product gap we have in the country, we are hoping that those gaps will be covered by a mixture of the three or four refineries that government owns currently, Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna and of course the Dangote refinery of 600 barrels,” he said.
