•Dr. Kachikwu
The
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu,
yesterday advocated for the speedy rehabilitation of the nation’s
refineries, to skip their being sold as scraps.
He warned that if urgent measures were
not taken before the Dangote Refinery becomes operational, the
nation’s four refineries might be sold as scraps in 2019.
Kachikwu, who gave the warning at the
the stakeholders’ consultative forum on the draft National Gas Policy
and National Oil Policy in Abuja, said the only option opened to the
country was to ensure that the refineries work within the shortest
possible time.
He said: “Refineries would have to work;
it is really not an option anymore. And not only should it work, it has
to work very quickly. The reality is that if we do not privatise and we
do not concession — which is not what we are doing —then we have a
responsibility to find private capital to get them to where they should
be.
“This is because if we do not get them
to work, in 2019, I can assure you that if Dangote system works well, we
would have scraps, we won’t have refineries, because by then it would
be too late to do anything.”
The minister however sought efforts to
address the issue of cost of production in the petroleum industry, to
bring down the cost to a reasonable and manageable level.
He said that crude oil is still produced
at $27 per barrel in Nigeria, adding that no decent country would
produce at that amount at a period when oil price is unpredictable as it
is now.
He said: “They are lots of things we
still need to address. Cost is a key issue. We are still at $27 per
barrels. No decent country would produce oil at $27 per barrel at a time
when the pricing is unpredictable. Again, we are going to try to get
those figures below $18 per barrel.”
The minister noted that the Federal
Government is committed to fully deregulating the downstream sector of
the petroleum industry. He said while the process have started, and
since it is a continuing process, the government would continue
fine-tuning it until it gets to where it should be.
“At every given time in the history of
every country, you will always have partial deregulation. The reason
been that you have to catch up each time and make an amendment, and even
if it is just one day, you might have some level of subsidy for that
one or two days before it is removed.
“What is important is the goal post;
where are we headed; where we are headed is to try and free the
industry, so that it can do its own rules, set its own prices itself,”
he said.
Souce: Nation
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