The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has said the Federal Government is determined to address the many problems associated with the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) through ensuring effective modular refineries across the country.
Lokpobiri stated this while on a visit to Waltersmith Petroman Modular Refinery at Ibigwe community in Ohaji/Egbema Council of Imo State.
The minister said they are focused on ensuring sufficient supply of refined petroleum products for consumption, noting that in line with his duty, he had toured all three national refineries to evaluate their stages of rehabilitation.
Addressing newsmen after a facility tour on the modular refinery, Lokpobiri noted that the shortest way to tackle the issues of short supply of PMS is ensuring effective refineries.
“As the Minister of State for Petroleum, my responsibility is to ensure that we have sufficient supplies of refined petroleum products for the consumption of Nigerians and since I took charge, we have visited the refineries and that is why I go around all the refineries in Port Harcourt, Kaduna refinery, Warri refinery.
“The easiest way to address our refinery problems is modular refineries. The success story you see here also had the component of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in collaboration with others and as a government, we will do the one we can do.
“The biggest challenge of modular refineries was feed stuck, and access to funding and we are addressing these problems; that is why Bank of Industry (BOI) and NCDMB are also here to take this collaboration to the next level.
“But I want to say that’s not enough for us to give those who have modular refinery license money. We need to identify those who have proven records of success because some people will take the money and divert it but here we are physically seeing functional ones. And we have also seen the expansion of what is going on. So, we will do whatever we can to support them.
“From what I am seeing here, there is wonderful work going on and I am happy to be here. The ones we have are still going under rehabilitation.”
When asked about the feasibility of the December deadline for the commencement of operations of the Port Harcourt Refinery, the minister said he would hold the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) responsible for failure to finish the first phase of the rehabilitation.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Simbi Wabote, refinery is one of the first projects that have tried to materialise, saying it has been a success story.
“As you can see, they have produced almost 600 million litres of various products from this refinery. About 20 trucks leave this refinery daily, you have gone around and you have seen it is working. I am very happy that it is a success.”
Also, the Chairman of Waltersmith Petroman Modular Refinery, Abdulrasaq Isah, said the refinery is expanding from 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per day production capacity.
He revealed that they are actually thinking ahead 10,000 per day, saying: “We are thinking more around 40,000, because we have an ongoing engagement with the national oil company and we are also canvassing the support of the minister to see that we conclude the engagement with the NNPCL.”
