Dr Ibe Kachikwu,minister of state for petroleum said on Saturday that the Federal Government needed 700 million dollars to upgrade its refineries to produce at maximum capacities.
Kachikwu disclosed this while speaking with newsmen during the re-inauguration of the Port Harcourt/Bonny Crude Supply Line at the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Eleme, Rivers.
He said since the country don't have such money, foreign investors have been invited to take over the refineries.
“So, the best thing to do is to find a very creative way to bring in investors, who will come in, work with our team here;
“Investors, who have the skills to reactivate and upgrade facilities in this place and help us provide technical support and we will pay through the flow-out of the refined products over time,” he said.
Kachikwu emphasised that there should be no confusion about what the investors would be coming to do, since they would not come to run the refinery.
“They are coming to provide funds to take our performance on these refineries to 90 percent and to provide us with technical skills.
“So, the areas of intervention will be funding and technical support,” he said.
Kachikwu said that at present, Nigerians were consuming about 45 million litres of PMS daily, while the refineries were producing 12 million litres daily as they were working at 60 per cent capacity.
He said that the nation will need to upgrade these refineries and let them develop to the point where they can perform up to 90 per cent.
He said that by the time the refineries were upgraded and they start producing at 90 per cent, about 20 million litres would be produced daily
The minister said that with such production, it would only meet up with about half of the country’s consumption.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add a comment