“FG Plans To Privatize Refineries In 12 Months” – Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, has hinted that the federal government may have finalized plans to privatize the country’s refineries in the next one year.

According to the Minister, who doubles as the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the federal government was looking at privatizing its refineries within 12 months, disclosing that Agip and Chevron have already indicated interest in purchasing two of the refineries.

Kachikwu revealed that his team is working with oil majors on improving the state-run refineries in Nigeria.

He was quoted by Reuters as saying that the federal government wanted to privatise the refineries within 12 months following the much-needed maintenance work.

“We have gotten commitments from some of the majors. Agip has indicated interest to work with us on Port Harcourt, Chevron on Warri. We are talking to Total on Kaduna,” Kachikwu said.

He added that even if the refineries in question performed to their optimum capacity, their production would still not meet local demand for petrol.

He noted that the non-performance of the refineries was due to a number of factors, including fraud and lack of holistic maintenance. As a result of the long period of non-maintenance, a lot of components were ineffective.