The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, says that Nigeria will be a net exporter of refined petroleum products by December this year, following emerging indicators in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.
Speaking at the meeting with the Senate Committee on Finance of the National Assembly led by Senator Sani Musa, Mr. Kyari listed some of the emerging indicators as the coming on stream of the Port Harcourt refinery early next month, followed by the Refinery in Warri months later, and the Kaduna refinery, latest by December this year.
He told the meeting attended by some economic stakeholders, including the Ministers of Finance, Wale Edun; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu; Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri; and the Governor of the Central Bank, Olayemi Cardoso that in a few months, the oil production level for the country would hit 2 million barrels per day, as all the ennoblements towards that had already been put in place.
“Mr Chairman and members of the joint committee, let me just confirm that the NNPCL and the oil and gas industry are very critical in bringing about a turnaround in our current economic situation, and we understand the importance of this. We are taking every step that is practical for us to achieve this.
“We have already seen growth in our oil and gas production because of certain actions that Mr President personally took, and the very mere truth that we have also declared war on production activities, and this is yielding the required results.
“The combination of these two has now seen us restoring production in our country, and we believe that, as the Honorable Minister has said, we will soon hit the target of 2 million barrels of oil production per day,” the Punch newspaper report on Tuesday quoted Kyari as saying.
“Mr Chairman and members of the joint committee, let me just confirm that NNPCL and the oil and gas industry are very critical in bringing about a turnaround in our current economic situation, and we understand the importance of this. We are taking every step that is practical for us to achieve this.
“We have already seen growth in our oil and gas production because of certain actions that Mr President personally took, and the very mere truth that we have also declared war on production activities, and this is yielding the required results.
“The combination of these two has now seen us restoring production in our country, and we believe that, as the Honorable Minister has said, we will soon hit the target of 2 million barrels of oil production per day,” Kyari added.
According to Kyari, there are several comments in the public space around the refining business and domestic production, including production that will come from the commissioned Dangote Refinery.