We Can’t Have Four Refineries And Still Importing Fuel, Kachikwu Must Explain Why, Reps Declare 

Ibe Kachikwu

The House of Representatives on Monday said it is a national shame for the country to have four refineries of 445,000 barrels capacity and still importing fuel, insisting that the Minister of State Petroleum, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu need to tell Nigerians why the nation’s refineries have collapsed again months after reporting their resumed operations.

Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream, Hon. Akinlaja Joseph, made this assertion at Ifiekporo, Warri South local government area, Delta state, during the committee’s oversight visit to the tank-farm of Matrix Energy Limited.

The visit was part of the 5-man committee’s efforts to explore stakeholders perspective on prohibitive kerosene cost and the recurring deaths associated with adulteration of the product.

Akinlaja, however spoke on backdrop of revelations from stakeholders that the Warri refinery and that of Port Harcourt were currently not producing with similar doubt over the one in Kaduna.

According to him, it is disheartening that the nation’s infrastructure were in comatose state, particularly the refineries, despite the reassurance from the Minister for Petroleum, maintaining that it has become a national shame for an oil producing country like Nigeria to be importing refined oil products.

“It’s quite unfortunate that in Nigeria infrastructure does not work. We will make laws, but implementation of the laws is also important. How can we have four refineries of 445,000 barrels capacity and we are still importing fuel, it’s a national shame, all of us have to be concerned.

“We will invite the minister and ask him because the last time we visited the refineries he told us certain things. We saw the 1965 refinery and there was flame, which means it had started working, we are surprised that six months after, if has gone down again.

“When this refinery in Warri was established in 1978, the turnaround maintenance was done by Nigerians, suddenly the award of contracts has jeopardised this, rendering Nigerian engineers idle, receiving salaries for no work done. These are issues that the House will be looking into”

Meanwhile, speaking earlier on the prohibitive cost of kerosene and the proliferation of killer product, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer at Matrix, Abdulkabir Aliu told the House of Representatives members that it is unimaginable to talk of cheaper kerosene in the atmosphere of inadequate supply upon dependence on importation without concession on dollars for kerosene importation as it is for petrol.

Among his suggestions to sanitize the downstream, particularly for lowering kerosene cost, Aliu said, “The intervention fund that allows concession of cheaper dollars for AGO importation should be extended to kerosene. Also, Government should lead importation when local refineries fail.

However, the real way out of the problem is for stakeholders to phase out use of kerosene and concentrate resources on encouraging cooking gas, he said.

“I have been to Benin Republic, Ghana, many West African countries. They don’t even know what kerosene is, they use gas which is cheaper and safer. I think Nigeria is just one of about three countries that depend on kerosene. And it should not be so because we are a big producer of gas”, he added.

Commenting on the menace of killer kerosene, the Metrix boss said, regulators should enforce “coloration of the product to avoid diversion for aviation fuel or adulteration with cheaper, but highly inflammable products which give rise to the explosions that are claiming lives.”

Written by Joe Ogbodu