Victor Ezeja
AdminThe Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, yesterday said that for Nigeria to avoid more wasteful years of non-performing public assets in the oil sector, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL) must come up with creative ways for optimal performance.
Speaking while receiving the management of the NNPCL, who paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja, he said, “I am from Kaduna, and the Kaduna refinery has been moribund for more than 20 years. I know of people working there, who have been idle all these years receiving salaries and promotions.
“This is inefficiency of a worrisome proportion. The company needs to seek creative ways to repurpose staff strength in such facilities to areas where they can remain productive even in the absence of crude oil at the refineries,” Abbas said.
He went on to advocate measures that would turn around the losses suffered by the economy, owing to the non-productive state of the refineries, by privatising them for better management and productivity.
*NNPCL Ends Fuel Import Dec 2024, Projects N4.5tn Revenue*
Meanwhile, NNPCL said it would end the importation of refined petroleum products by December 2024 as all the country’s refineries would be operational by then. He blamed the petroleum subsidy for inactive refineries in Nigeria over the years, stressing that the removal of the subsidy was already attracting a lot of private-sector investments.
The oil firm also projected that the national oil firm would grow its revenue to N4.5tn at the end of 2023 adding that the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refining Company, under NNPCL’s management, would be completed by December this year.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari, disclosed this in the same courtesy visit he led officials of the company to a pay to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
According to him, “I can confirm to you that by the end of December this year, we will start the Port Harcourt refinery; early in the first quarter of 2024, we will start the Warri refinery and by the end of 2024, Kaduna refinery will come into operation.
“This is the commitment we are giving today and you can hold us accountable for this. In 2024, many of the initiatives including the rehabilitation of our refineries and also the efforts of small-scale refineries, and the upcoming Dangote refinery, will make Nigeria a net exporter of petroleum products in 2024.
“We will no longer be talking about fuel importation by the end of 2024. I am very optimistic that this will crystallise,” he said, pledging that by the end of 2023, the expected government revenue from the company would hit N4.5tn, as NNPCL now returns value to shareholders in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act.
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