Nigeria’s 4 refineries repositioned to produce 10m litres of PMS daily – Minister

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe
Kachikwu, said the nation’s refineries had
been repositioned to produce not less than
10 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit
(PMS), popularly known as petrol, per day.
Kachikwu stated this on Sunday during his
official visit to Kaduna Refining and
Petrochemical Company (KRPC).
According to him, the mission of the visit
was to ascertain the current state of the
refinery and identify areas of challenges
for the workers at the refinery.
“A lot of work has been done and a lot
manpower have been put in place. But a
lot still needs to be done in order to put
this refinery to work continuously and
reliably,” he said.
He noted that a lot of progress has been
made in terms of availability of fuel in the
various cities and towns as the long
queues are fast disappearing from the
filling stations.
While commending the management of
KRPC for keeping the refinery working for
more than a week now, he however said
there was room for improvement so as to
move the current production level from
1.5 million litres to 2 or 3 million litres
per day.
He expressed confidence that with more
refineries coming on stream the fuel
supply situation will continue to improve
in the country.
While fielding questions later from
newsmen, the minister said the Federal
Government was doing all it could do to
ensure the subsidy on fuel is resolved
without inflicting more pains on ordinary
Nigerians.
“Everybody is on the same page that we
need to get out of it; should we sale
product at a certain price or should we let
free market rolling so that we can sky
rocket prices,” he said.
According to him, the President says that
product should go for N87 per litre for
now and that he has given an approval to
look at market trends and make
adjustment if need be.
He assured that the administration was
committed to ensuring adequate supply of
petroleum products across the country.
The minister, who was received by the
Managing Director of KRPC management
headed by Mr Saidu Mohammed, was
accompanied by top NNPC officials during
the visit.