Nigerian refineries can’t meet demands even at optimal capacity – Kachikwu

Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe
Kachikwu, said on Tuesday in Abuja, that
the refineries in the country could not
meet local demand of petrol even if they
functioned at optimal capacity.
Kachikwu while briefing the Senate
Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) on
the lingering scarcity of petrol said that
the refineries if repaired, could not even
meet up to 50 per cent demand.
He said that the design of the refineries
had already created gaps in refining
Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) even if the
refineries were to function at full capacity.
``The design of the Nigerian refineries
was such that the component of PMS
versus other products was almost a 50/50
per cent relationship.
``Most world refineries now provide PMS
to about 70 to 80 per cent ratio.
``So, even if the refineries work as being
designed today, they will still provide less
than 50 per cent of what we consume in
this country.
``In any case, it is geared to producing
only half of that, but the design of the
PMS quotient of the total production is
only 50 per cent.
``So, even if it worked perfectly, we will
still have a gap, this is why we have gone
to try and increase the capacity,” he said.
The minister added that the ministry was
striving to utilise other sources of refining
petrol while also depending on the coming
on board of private refineries like Dangote
refinery.
He said that the non-performance of the
refineries was due to a number of factors,
including fraud and lack of holistic
maintenance.
The minister said that due to the long
period of non- maintenance, a lot of
components were bad and as such after
every major repair, another component
went bad almost immediately.
``We have also had issues of fraud, it got
to a point where I started wondering
whether as we repair this, somebody was
going out there to destroy, so that
contracting will be done.
``Over the last 10 to 15 years, we have
not done a serious, conclusive turn around
maintenance of these refineries; the
refineries are averagely 30 to 40 years old,
the equipment are far dilapidated.