Appearing before the House of Representatives of Nigeria’s Committee on Petroleum Upstream on Thursday, 26th November 2020, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, said the Oil Company intentionally shut down the state-owned refineries as there are of no use at the moment.
He said the NNPC was unable to supply crude oil to the refineries as it is practically impossible to run a pipeline at their optimum capacity. He said it was only excravos pipeline that the NNOC managed to sustain through the contracting process.
He said the NNPC has over 5,000 kilometres of pipelines with 13 fuel depots which must be protected against the activities of vandals. He noted that the activities of vandals in H1 2020 has cost the country to lost petroleum products worth N43 billion. He said the relevant security agencies have already been engaged to curtail such illicit activities.
He pleaded with the House to urgently pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to attract more investors to the Nigerian oil and gas sector.
He reiterated his commitment to running the NNPC with transparency and accountability, highlighting that the Corporation published its audited report of 2018 and 2019; a feat that has never happened before. He also re-stated that the NNPC will declare its dividend for 2020.
Excerpts from Kyari’s submission:
“For instance, to run Kaduna and Warri refinery, you need to deliver 170,000 barrel of oil per day so that both will operate at 70 per cent capacity.”
“And I can tell you today that except the Atlas cove to Ibadan line and also the Port Harcourt to Aba line, none of these pipelines are serviced.
“We cannot flow product into these lines, the cheap one is to say they are aged but the real reason is that the level of activities of vandals on these lines is gross, monumental and profound.
“At every point within a month we fix 80 vandal points, the option is to shut them down and the result of having one depot is what we have seen in Lagos,”
The Chairman of the committee, Musa Adar, praised the NNPC Head as he points out that the House has severally failed to get the budget of the national assembly in the past.
He said, “Initially most of the problems are usually from the NNPC because no one wants his power taken away from him, but I salute the GMD of NNPC.”
