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The refineries are not performing optimally because they are unable to access crude oil for refining, Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Emmanuel Kachikwu, said yesterday. He said the four refineries are battling with obsolete equipment and are unable to take crude oil for refining into finished products.
 
Represented by the Executive Director, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Mrs Aisha Katagwu at the ninth Oil Trading & Logistics (OTL) Expo in Lagos, Kachikwu said the Corporation is working hard to improve pipelines security, restructure its corporate centres, provide transparent and accountable operations, improve efficiency among its workforce. He added that the state-run oil firm was also taking other measures to stop leakages/wastages in the system. He said the NNPC unbundled PPMC because it wanted to reduce crude oil exports and achieving other objectives that would aid the growth of the industry.
Kachikwu said the Corporation is exploring how it could improve the growth of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) market, in view of its importance to the economy. “We are looking at the LPG market to promote growth. As it is, the country is depending on kerosene for consumption. But we  are seeing the need to grow the LPG sub-sector of the oil and gas industry because it is cleaner, friendlier and cheaper. Besides, the LPG sector would create jobs for the economy.” he added.
Former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Odein Ajumogobia, said there have been discrepancies in the number of litres of petrol consumed in the country per day. He said there was a time the country was said to be consuming 30 million litres of petrol per day, adding that all of a sudden the figure has risen to 43 million litres per day.
Meanwhile, stakeholders in the country’s downstream sector have insisted that due to the fall in crude oil prices which has resulted in decline in revenue generation, the Federal Government has to remove subsidy on petroleum products. The stakeholders gave the advice in Lagos yesterday at the Oil Trading Logistics Africa conference where they gathered to deliberate on “Fuelling Economic Growth through Petroleum Policy and Infrastructure: The Downstream Agenda”.
The Chief Executive of Ghana Petroleum Authority, Moses Asaga, advised Nigeria to follow the Ghana example of deregulation of the downstream sector. Other stakeholders, including Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu; former Minister of State for Petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia; and former Executive Secretary of Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, Reginald Stanley, expressed belief that the privatisation of the country’s downstream sector is the only way out of its current challenges.
According to Asaga, Nigeria has a lot to learn from Ghana about the management of the petroleum downstream sector. He noted that deregulation policy will take away the sole right of the national petroleum company to determine the prices of fuel products in the country. Asaga said deregulation also allows the various bulk oil distribution companies to determine how much they would want to charge for fuel to their customers. He said Ghana had always seen Nigeria as a big brother and had learnt a lot from Nigeria in respect to management of the petroleum industry. “But this time around, I think Nigeria needs to learn about managing the downstream sector from Ghana. We have been able to deregulate our downstream sector of the petroleum