Mr. Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd says there is no single refinery working at the moment in the country.
Kyari disclosed this when he appeared before the House of Rep joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) on Tuesday, June 28, in Abuja.
The committee is investigating the increase in prices of diesel and cooking gas.
Kyari said that the country’s refineries were not working at the moment, adding that the situation was regrettable but the NNPC was doing something to bring the refineries back to work.
According to him, the refineries will not come back tomorrow, there is a process going on. “We have decided to do a quick fix for Warri refinery.”
He said that no one could guarantee the security of petroleum supply, adding that countries were preserving excess volume that they had in their kitty.
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“The world has never seen this kind of uncertainty…Today, countries are stockpiling products. Shortly before COVID-19, the world was already facing a shortfall of 3 million barrels of supply of oil,” he said.
He said that there had been no control to manage the energy crisis across the world; stressing that “to guarantee energy security means you just make the product available at any time and at any cost.”
The GMD also disclosed that over 200 illegal refineries were being operated across the country.
He said that the solution was to restore crude oil production; adding that there was a massive intervention that was ongoing and by the end of July; “we will restore production to a level that is reasonable.
“Many European countries are asking for rationing gas. They are asking people to alternate their Air Conditioning.
“Today, countries are toying with subsidy because prices are so high because they don’t think they can manage inflation associated with it.”
Mr Farouk Ahmed, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum, said that the current geopolitical crisis in Ukraine and Russia had resulted in the increase of petroleum product.
He added that this was because Russia was one of the major producer; adding that the war had affected petroleum products.
Also, it affected all nations across the world and Nigeria was not an exemption.
