It is cheaper to import oil than refining locally – Kachikwu
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu has explained why Nigeria will continue to import Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, otherwise known as petrol, rather than refine locally.
The Minister said until the upgrade and total refurbishment of the refineries are concluded, as well as ensuring that the pipelines are fixed, it would be uneconomic and very expensive to refine PMS locally.
According to him, the local refining of PMS would make much more economic sense if all the refineries undergo full set of repairs and Turn-Around Maintenance, TAM, and when new refineries are set up in the country through co-locative initiative.
Speaking at a public function in Abuja, the Minister said, “Most modern refineries are configured in such a way that your stock of PMS outage is a lot higher, 70 to 80 per cent. So when we do import the product, we actually save money; we get it less expensive than when we do it here.
“But having said that, the reality is that until we have alternatives in terms of co-locative refineries which we are looking at; until we finish the total refurbishment to improve and upgrade the refineries, it does not make sense to use it with some of the deficiencies.”
Kachikwu further noted that even if the current sets of refineries were working on a 100 per cent basis, they would only be able to account for 20 million litres of PMS per day, which is about 50 per cent of the country’s total consumption.
