NNPC SAYS NIGERIA WILL STILL IMPORT PETROL IN 2016

Dr. Ibe Kachikwu

Group Managing Director Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed that the country would still depend on 75 per cent importation of fuel throughout the whole of next year.

Dr. Kachikwu, made this known during his tour of Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC).

He said: “The future is that, Nigeria is still going to import fuel in 2016 and beyond. Best case situation is 25 per cent local and 75 per cent importation. Worse case is what we are experiencing now. Until we begin to get individuals who can co-relocate, we are going to be doing a mixture of local and importation of fuel to meet up demands. In the next few weeks, however, queues will disappear in fuel stations.”

According to the minister, the Kaduna refinery, in no time, will be producing more than two million litres per day capacity as soon as an Fluid Catalytic Cracking, FCC, unit is fully on stream.

In his own words: “We need to get it back to re-kit it to work well. We will do that with some level of production going on. Our concern is to have a consistent production and provision of products at all times.”

While speaking on subsidy and pricing, the minister said: “We will not be fluctuating prices, we will take an average. Today no subsidy, in January we will look at the situation and announce it.”

Speaking on privatization, Dr. Kachikwu said that President Muhammadu Buhari had not approved any policy about selling the refineries.”