The
Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has expressed hope that it will be able to refine 50
percent of petrol consumed in Nigeria by 2018. The
corporation said it hopes to achieve this by improving the refining capacity
of its refineries by 80 percent that year.
The
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr.
Maikanti Baru, stated this when he was visited by a team from Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust Newspapers, led by its
Chairman, Mallam Kabiru Yusuf. A statement by NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, said the corporation has
commenced moves to reduce products importation by boosting the capacity
utilization of the refineries to 60 per cent by the end of this year.
Dr.
Baru, according to the statement, explained that NNPC was keen on ending
product importation in a few years and that a concrete plan was on ground to
achieve that.
“We
are putting together various programmes to ensure that we achieve at least 60
percent local refining by the end of this year. It is the procedure or
methodology that we are changing a little bit, we are focusing on the process
licensors to come and audit our processes and they
have
already started auditing most of our process units in the various refineries.
“We
hope if we do all these systematically, we should be able to get about 60 per
cent level of capacity utilization by the end of this year or at worst by the
first quarter of 2018 and get to 80 percent by the end of 2018 so that we could
locally be able to supply half of our PMS requirements. Also,
with other efforts in terms of other refineries coming in place, we should be
able to quit importation in a few years,” the GMD stated.
Dr
Baru lauded the management of Media Trust Limited for its factual reportage of
the corporation’s activities and operations. He
urged the media to help in enlightening the public on the dangers of pipeline
vandalism which he said has become a drain on the nation’s economy. On
its part, Media Trust commended the NNPC for excellent performance in
discharging its fiduciary responsibilities. (Authority)
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