By Yemie Adeoye & Daniel Alfred

LAGOS—Following the acute petrol scarcity currently rocking the nation, the Federal Government has promised that all refineries in the country would be at optimal performance by the end of this month.

This was disclosed by the Group Executive Director,  Refinery and Petrochemicals,  the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mr Austin Oniwon, during the stakeholders forum to find a lasting solution to the crises in the downstream sub-sector of the petroleum industry.

According to Oniwon, the refineries are currently in position to operate fully as their Turn Around Maintenance, TAM, had been carried out.

Further reports emanating from the forum indicated that the Federal Government may use vessels to complement the pipelines which are currently in a state of disrepair as a result of constant vandalisation.

Govt to delay full deregulation
However, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman noted that the full deregulation of the downstream sector, though highly appreciated as a panacea to the myriads of problems bedeviling the sub-sector may not be implemented anytime soon as there are need to put a lot of measures in place to be able to act in a deregulated system once it kicks off. According to him, government would not want to give a date that could not be implemented and as such would rather concentrate on putting those measures in place.

“I would like to take a look at the issue of refineries. It is public knowledge that successive governments had granted refining licenses to many companies, with the hope of increasing our domestic production of refined products. But to this day no single refinery has taken off. Our analysis has led us to the conclusion that the enabling environment for the establishment of refineries does not exists in the country today. We have identified what constitutes the enabling environment and these have been incorporated in the petroleum industry bill.

Oniwon further stated that “the directorate was already putting finishing touch to the idea of using vessels and sea crafts to convey crude oil from production rigs and platforms nearest to the refineries. Oniwon said the idea was to reduce the dependence on pipelines in the movement of crude to refineries due to incessant attacks. “For so long the vital Chanomi Creek pipeline conveying crude from Escravos to Warri and Kaduna
Refineries has been the butt of militant attacks aimed at crippling the fuel supply situation in the country,”” he said

Oniwon was upbeat that the plan which was on the verge of leaving the drawing board would go a long way in solving the problem of providing stock feed to the refineries.

Barkindo calls for solution to fuel scarcity

Declaring the forum, which was meant to find a concrete solution to the challenges facing the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry open, Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, charged the management of the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, PPMC, and the refineries in the country to come up with practical solutions to end the perennial fuel supply and distribution challenge.

Barkindo stated that the NNPC as a national oil company must take the lead to address this challenge in a holistic manner.

“We cannot continue to sing the same song of excuses. This is embarrassing not only to us as managers of the industry but to all other Nigerians as well. This is a practical forum where we are only interested in practical and innovative solutions to the challenge we face,’’’ he said.

He said it was in recognition of the fact that the NNPC does not have a monopoly to the solutions that it was willing to carry all other stakeholders along in its drive to find a lasting antidote to the fuel problem.

“In going into a deregulated environment the downstream sector must get its act together to face these issues. Deregulation itself is not likely to solve all these challenges over night. Therefore ,the sector must get together in this type of forum in an open and frank manner to present their own perspective on the current state of the industry and the way forward,” Barkindo said.