Lokpobiri Asks NNPC To Explain State Of Nigeria’s Refineries

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited should explain to Nigerians what is happening with the country’s refineries.

Lokpobiri made the call during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday while responding to questions over claims about the performance of the refineries, Naija News reports.

The minister said Nigerians deserved to know the facts about the facilities and promised to ask the NNPC to provide an explanation.

“I will tell them to come. Let them come and explain,” he said.

His comment followed a question from the programme’s host over earlier claims that the refineries had reached full capacity, with questions later raised about their actual output.

Lokpobiri said it would be wrong to draw conclusions without first establishing the facts surrounding the operations of the facilities.

“I’ve said here that it is better for us to have the full facts about these refineries so that we don’t make any hasty conclusions,” he said.

The minister also spoke about the country’s crude oil production, saying output had continued to increase.

Lokpobiri said figures from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission showed that production was averaging about 1.84 million barrels per day, including condensates.

He said the Federal Government was working towards raising production beyond two million barrels per day.

However, he identified ageing infrastructure as one of the major challenges limiting further growth.

“The reason why we are not able to do more than this is because of the state of our infrastructure,” he said.

According to him, several pipelines in the country are more than 50 years old, making it difficult to evacuate additional crude even when production increases.

He said NNPC had started a comprehensive overhaul of the pipeline network, which he said would gradually improve the country’s crude evacuation capacity.

Lokpobiri also said oil operators were bringing some previously shut-in wells back into production through re-entry programmes.

He linked the development to recent changes in the ownership and operation of some oil assets, including Shell’s former assets now operated by Renaissance Africa Energy and Seplat’s acquisition of ExxonMobil’s onshore business.

According to the minister, the return of the wells and other measures being taken by operators were contributing to the gradual increase in Nigeria’s crude oil production.