News Obiaks News

Some weeks ago, the Federal Government claimed that some of the refineries in the country were already operational. They stated that others would be operational in few weeks from then. However, the story reaching us from the oil sector indicates that all is not well with the refineries as the country now depends more on fuel importation. In actual fact, the rate of exportation is just like what had been the case in times past. It had been made public that Nigeria will have to depend on fuel importation for the third quarter of 2015. Just last week, the NNPC gave the import allocation to the product’s importers , it was learnt on Monday and this confirmed the fears of many Nigerians that the refineries may not be in working conditions as Nigerians have been led to believe by the government.      

Penultimate week, it was learnt that the Kaduna refinery would start production of the petroleum products at some 30% of its full capacity. Similar news were made public about other refineries in the country. However, the recent developments in the petroleum industry indicate that things may not come to pass as stated earlier. The information made public by those operating the refineries about their ability to produce large chunk of fuel needed for consumption by the Nigerian populace may not be true after all.

It was learnt also that fuel tankers that should have ordinarily been loaded at Nigerian refineries were found making their ways to Lagos to load the products. This was made public to newsmen on Monday by some of the senior officials of the Petroleum Pricing regulatory Agency and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources.   This means the report made public by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation just last months is misrepresenting of facts when it claimed that the Port Harcourt refinery was set to produce fuel up to 60% of its capacity, which amounts to a total of 210,000 barrels each day.  The NNPC also made public that the refinery at Warri, Delta State would be able to produce to 80% of its capacity, which is about 125,000 barrels per day.

The same heartwarming, but eventually misleading report was received from Kaduna Refining  and Petrochemical Company and was made public by Shehu Malami, who is the Production Programming and Quality Control manager of the refinery. He declared that the Kaduna refinery is expected to produce up to 90% of its capacity by the first quarter of 2016. He stated that the country would be able to save up to $5.33m each day as a result.

Officials of the PPPRA and the ministry of petroleum are however wandering why the refineries have not been able to generate fuel as it was promised last month. The Nigerian fuel consumers consume about 40 million barrels per day. If the refineries are working as Nigerians had been promised that they would work, then they should be generating half of the total fuel consumption. But it seems like the expected functional capacity of the refineries is very far from being attained.

By Anthony Olawale Ojo