Fakoyejo OlalekanThe Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, has revealed over 100 illegal refineries are being operated in Nigeria, as the country continues to lose billions to oil theft.
Kyari made the staggering revelation during his briefing at the House of Representatives, where he faced the Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream).
He was summoned to the lower chamber to explain reason for the rising prices of diesel and cooking gas across the country. Recall that there had been scarcity of fuel, resulting to filling station raising pump price above the Federal Government agreed N165.
According to Kyari, there is at least 200 illegal refineries currently in operation within the country, and Prime Business Africa understands this has prevented the country from attaining its 1.8 million crude oil barrels per day quota.
Due to oil theft, only 1.35 million barrels reaches the export terminal, while the rest are stolen along the way through sabotage or pipeline vandalism, resulting to a loss of $1 billion per day within three months in Q1 2022.
Between January to March, Nigeria produces about 141 million barrels of crude oil, losing at least nine million barrels, which represents N434 billion loss to oil theft during the period under review.
Meanwhile, the NNPC Limited boss also disclosed that the refineries being rehabilitated will not be ready anytime soon, despite adopting a quick fix approach for the Warri Refinery.
“The refineries will not come back tomorrow. There is a process going on. We have decided to do a quick fix for the Warri refinery.” Kyari told the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream).
Explaining the reason for the scarcity of fuel, Kyari said countries are stockpiling, thereby, reducing the commodity’s availability in the global market, which has already been negatively affected by COVID-19.
“The world has never seen this kind of uncertainty. Today countries are stockpiling products. Shortly before COVID-19, the world was already facing a shortfall of 3 million barrels of supply of oil.”
Kyari disclosed that before the end of July 2022, the intervention of the Federal Government will ensure an increase in production level, “we will restore production to a level that is reasonable.”
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