FG to set up committee on NNPC unbundling

…as local refineries hits 6.76m litres daily

Following the decision of the Federal government to unbundled the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for optimum performance, President Muhammadu Buhari has said an inter-ministerial committee would soon be established to speed up the process.

According to a statement issued by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adeshina, Buhari disclosed this at a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Jin-Yong Cai at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

He said the reformation of the NNPC had become inevitable in view of the corruption and abuse of its present structure in the recent past, adding that President Buhari also cited Nigeria’s need to maximize income from every source of revenue as further reasons for reforming the NNPC.

In the statement, Adesina said Jin-Yong Cai told Buhari that with proper reformation and re-organisation, the State-owned Corporation could become Africa’s largest company.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s four refineries have upped their combined production capacity to over 6.76 million litres of petrol daily, says the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

In a statement released on Tuesday from its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Ohi Alegbe, the production ratios from plants indicated that the Port Harcourt refinery is now producing about 4.09 million litres of petrol; Kaduna Refinery now produces 1.29 million litres while the Warri refinery which came up last Sunday is posting a yield of about 1.38 million litres daily.

Alegbe disclosed in the statement that the daily production from the refineries is projected to increase to over 10 million litres per day by the end of January. He noted that the volumes of petrol produced from the refineries which are currently operating at an appreciable percentage of their actual capacities will help stabilize the fuel supply and distribution situation in the country.

Speaking on the development, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources who doubles as the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu expressed optimism that the refineries would gradually come up to produce up to 10 million litres of petrol per day, thus cutting the country’s petrol importation by that volume.

“If all things were equal, I think the maximum cap for Kaduna will be in the two to three million range; Port Harcourt will probably be five and six million. If all things were working and we do not have any other complications arising from these plants, we will expect to see 10 million litres per day,” Kachikwu stated.