Only way to have fuel sufficiency is local refining

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Kabir Garba Marafa (APC, Zamfara) is optimistic the Dangote Refinery will go a long way in ending fuel scarcity in Nigeria when it is completed on schedule in 2019.

Marafa, a former staff of the Kaduna Refinery, in a phone interview, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the refinery is one of the best things to happen to the country as he sees local refining as the only way to end fuel scarcity in Nigeria.

The senator is optimistic the project will be completed on schedule following their visit to the site last year.

“It has been long [since] I went to the site so I cannot tell you the actual level of work now. The refinery is a 3-in-one complex, including fertilizer plant. Almost all the equipment for the refinery was on ground when we visited last year. They have finished land filling and they’ve started erecting structures when we went. I’m sure they have gone very far now,” Marafa said.

On the proposed source of crude for the refinery, Marafa said, “Directly we did not discuss it but I know he [Dangote] has made arrangements for that, including an offshore storage facilities. He can buy crude from the Nigerian government and pump it to his refinery. That’s should not be a problem because we are selling our crude and he can buy from the country like any other buyer. It is an open market.”

On the ailing public refineries, the senator seemed baffled that the government refineries are struggling to function

“Refineries elsewhere that are over 100 years are still functioning at 80/90 percent capacity. I wonder why we can’t get ours to work. Ours is just how old? Why can’t we manage it? It is just this mentality that anything that belongs to the government, belongs to nobody.”