Failure To Fix Refineries, A Strategy Problem That Is Difficult To Explain — NNPC

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mallam Mele Kyari, has said the failure to fix the country’s refineries over the years was a strategy problem.

Kyari, who spoke on Friday during a virtual chat with Atlantic Council, said it was very difficult to explain why an oil-producing country would become a net importer of petroleum products.

He said, “The reason is simple: we could not fix our refineries and that is very difficult to explain. Why can’t we fix our refineries? We started this very many years ago. However, all attempts to fix our refineries failed for very simple reasons and that was a strategy problem.

“First, we did not know what we wanted to do with it. We did not get the right advisory, the right strategy to go through this. We have started the process few years ago to get the original refinery builders to help us build it. That is not their job. It is just like buying a car and saying Toyota must come and recycle that is not how it’s going to work.”

The NNPC boss said the country had changed its strategy to allow a new framework.

“This framework would enable others to help us – investors to put their monies into it and all. Ultimately, we would change that equation and that is very simple. We would set a target for ourselves and have a clear strategy for achieving it,” he added.

Kyari added that the corporation would build condensate refineries.

He said, “At least, by July, we would have one of them. We are eyeing a production capacity of about 200,000 bpd per day and the first one would be about 50,000 bpd per day. This would boost capacity.

“We also have the Dangote refinery, which would deliver 650,000 bpd capacity. The combination of all these will make the country sufficient in the supply of finished petroleum product.”