The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has charged the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to make good its promise of ensuring the refining of petroleum products locally by the year 2024.
According to Senator Akpabio, local refining would ensure job creation for the teeming youths in the country and ultimately reduce incidents of pipeline vandalization and oil theft that are being experienced in the sector. “I am insisting you deepen the idea of producing what we consume, while we consume what we produce,” he said.
Senator Akpabio gave the charge when the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL, Mallam Mele Kyari led management staff of the Company on a courtesy visit to the Senate and assured that the Senate would put in place legislation that would ensure the ease of doing business in the oil and gas sector.
The President of the Senate commended the NNPCL for the achievement in running the Company profitably unlike the past that the company operated on declared losses. “The smallest one that may look ordinary but it affects the Nigerian economy is the elimination of fuel queues in the country.
“The Senate is appreciative of your effort and would partner with you in all endeavours especially in terms of our various legislations to smoothen the ease of doing business in the oil sector and also to assist you to improve in your performance.” Akpabio said.
Earlier, Mallam Kyari thanked the National Assembly for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act without which he said the industry would still be struggling with fiscal situations and confidence of investors. “Part of the achievement of the PIA is that this company rose from a loss position in 2018 to a profit position of over N200 billion in 2021.
“Our financial statement has not yet been published but let me add that the NNPCL is most likely to post profit in excess of N2 trillion in 2023. This would not have happened if there were no enabling legislation and environment to operate,” he said.
The NNPCL boss also revealed that a robust supply plan of petroleum products is in place up until next year, assuring that there will be no fuel shortages, primarily because they occupy over 30 per cent of the downstream business and as such no queues are expected.
Mallam Kyari said Nigeria will be a net exporter of petroleum products in 2024. He however said the company was facing the problem of pipeline vandalization and oil theft but expressed the hope that the situation would abate following the engagement of private security companies to check this menace.