Channels Television reports that the Managing Director of Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) Limited, Mr Saidu Mohammed, on Saturday said that that the huge demand for petroleum products by Nigerians and neighbouring African countries will continue to force the nation to rely on fuel importation.
Nigeria, according to him, will not be able to produce enough to meet the demand and will therefore, continue to depend on importation in order to satisfy the needs of the people.
Speaking during the opening of a two-day workshop for energy correspondents in Kaduna State, the KRPC boss, who is the immediate past Managing Director of the Nigeria Gas Company, said even if the nation’s refineries produces at full capacity, they will not be able to meet the needs of Nigerians.
He said: “We will continue to import fuel as long as we cannot meet the demand because it is about demand and supply. If there is no much demand, we will not go for importation.
“Even if all the refineries work at 100 per cent capacity, we cannot meet the demand of 30 million litres per day, and we should not forget that some of our neighbours also depend on Nigeria for fuel”.
Engr. Mohammed also noted that all the newly established power plants across the country had been linked by gas pipelines and will soon commence operation.
“Initially, as the power plants were coming up, there was a misalignment between the power sector and the gas sector in the sense that the power plants were just springing up without taking the gas sector into consideration.
“In some instances, where the gas people were taken on board, they prepared the gas and you found that the power plant was not there. That misalignment has been corrected and what is happening today is laying of infrastructure to link all the power plants.
“I will say it categorically here that there is no power plant today that is not linked with a gas pipeline.”
On gas flaring which has been of concern to many Nigerians, he said gas flaring is gradually coming down as low as 15 per cent compared to what it was seven years ago.
“The gas produced, which is called associated gas, is the one we are referring to when we say certain percentage of it is flared and certain percentage is used. Today, the usage of that associated gas has risen to between 60 to 75 per cent in this country.
“So, the flares are going down, but there are flares that must be on at any moment because there is a level that you cannot economically recover the gas, and since it does not make economic sense, you just flare it”, he said.
