Abuja — The Petroleum Minister, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, has announced plans by Federal Government to halt the export of crude oil, just as plans are afoot to embark on the refining of all crude produced in the country.
He disclosed this yesterday at an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream Sector) under the chairmanship of Senator Emmanuel Paulker.
The session was convened by the committee to find a solution to the lingering fuel scarcity in the country. The session closed yesterday with an assurance by Lukman that the scarcity would end within the next two weeks.
Lukman also told the committee that government was determined to pursue the proposed policy of full deregulation of petroleum downstream sector.
He stated that poor maintenance culture of the refineries had been the bane of the refineries, pointing out that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has come out with timelines for accomplishing the turn-around maintenance of the nation's refineries.
According to him, "Our ultimate ambition is to stop exporting crude oil, add value to our crude so that we can export refined products. This is what is done in other countries."
He told the committee that although the refineries in the country were old, but they were not beyond repairs as, according to him, older refineries in other parts of the world are performing at optimum capacity due to good maintenance.
Lukman expressed concern that private investors who got approval to establish refineries have not done so, pointing out that the level of profit on investment and partial deregulation were discouraging them
According to him, "We have given licences to people to build refineries but they are useless licences as long as subsidies stays nobody is going to bring in money from outside.
"Our refineries have not performed well; they have not performed well and they cannot be allowed to continue to perform the way they are doing.
"They can perform better and more importantly we will encourage people to set up more refineries; two or three more refineries are now being considered partly by private and partly by joint ventures with NNPC.
"Our thought is that when the current refineries are put into an acceptable level of performance, they will be partially privatized so that they can perform largely better more than when they are fully owned by government."
Stakeholders present at the session all supported the policy of full deregulation.
Secretary General of Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Alhaji Aminu Abdulkadir, told the forum that what Nigeria needed was functional refineries.
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Should this be called pet talk or dream of Dr. Lukman? Present Nigerian leadership does not have the competence to get the refineries running normally. However, Dr. Lukman may come up with a solution to surprise everyone.
It is a shame that it took Dr. Lukman so long to come to this very obvious realisation that we are better-off selling refined petroleum products than exporting crude. This guy has been in the oil business almost all his life and was OPEC Secretary-General or something. Is this symptomatic of Nigerian technocrats not being able to observe their evironment and translate ideas and learnings into concrete action in their own country? Even a small country like Kuwait operates & manages refineries whereas the "sleeping-gaint of Africa" with all its vast human resources and talents can not manage just three refineries. Dr. Lukman, privatising these refineries is not the answer, it is only an admission of our incompetence and maybe an opportunity for the likes of you in the corridors of power to further your own selfish interest. If we do not have competent Nigerians to run the refineries, we can employ expatriates from around the world to do it for us and they can also serve to shame and educate our own people.
Tewin, on most occasions, in Nigeria square pegs are put in round holes with total support from the master imperialists UK and US ably aided by EU.These have been the bane of progress in Nigeria and by extension Africa, the wrong people being put in sensitive positions thereby slowing or destroying otherwise very good plans.Times are changing and we await the administration to see where they,re taking that truly giant of a nation.The EUROPEANS and their cousins from US must be stopped before there can be any meaningful development coming out of Africa.
What a great dream, Nigeria to refine it crud oil, build refineries inverted close competing refineries in Europe, create jobs on the refinery plants whiles competing European lose jobs on their refineries, cret engineering experts and add value on their row material, oil and cut the middle man of. The only thing that Africa takes from the Europeans is AID and for that Africa have to beg-beg-beg. Dr Lukman's idea is obvious and perhaps 20 years over due. But why haven't it happened. The story goes one African gomes with the idea another one, a politician or civil servant says what I am going to get paid to implement it. I dont have time I have three wives to attend to, to god and to my many mistresses. Hiring the new that is not in his favor the European promptly arrives, bribed the African politician, to do noting. The idea to build a refinery is buried for the next 20 years.
HE KNEW THIS SINCE I TOLD IBB, WHO THEN WAS TOLD TO LEASE OVERSEAS REFINERIES WHY DID HE STOP?? YOU FIRST MUST PASS FOI BILL, IN ORDER TO STOP THOSE PEOPLE WHO CONTROL THE FLOW OF CRUDE AND REFINED PRODUCTS TO MOVE, HIRE PROFESSIONAL PEOPLE TO BLOW UP PIPELINES AND CAUSE DESTRUCTION IN THE DELTA!!
TONY
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