The Federal Government has been urged to consider selling the state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna in order to finance the development of modular refineries.

The Crude Oil Refiners Association of Nigeria has urged for the sale of the refineries, asserting that this is the only solution to the ongoing fuel crisis plaguing the nation.

Eche Idoko, the Publicity Secretary of CORAN, raised concerns regarding the Federal Government’s investment of over $1 billion in the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery. Unfortunately, despite six delays, the refinery has still not commenced production.

He said, “We are not asking for free money. The government should set up an intervention fund in which people can access credit. So, it’s not free money. There are a lot of intervention funds in the agricultural sector,”

“The $1.5bn spent on the Port Harcourt refinery could be used to develop 10 modular refineries to be able to produce PMS of a minimum of 10,000 barrels per day. That is about 100,000 barrels a day.

“And if you have 100,000 barrels per day, at least, with the Dangote refinery, you would have solved that problem. We would actually have enough to begin to export,”

“The low-hanging fruit is simply to empower the modular refineries.

“A modular refinery takes an average of 12 to a maximum of 18 months to set up. This administration can identify and select from the modular refineries that are already on stream to support them.

“Right now, we have about 15 of them – five are operating but not producing PMS; the other 10 are at various stages of completion. If the government supported these 15 modular refineries to produce PMS, in about 12 months or less, they would have solved this problem of fuel scarcity, rather than say, you are putting money into the Port Harcourt refinery, Warri refinery, or Kaduna refinery.

“That was why there was a particular administration that tried to sell those facilities. Most of them are obsolete.

Technology has changed. I would have said that the government should sell them off. We know that the issue of fuel crisis is a serious issue, but do we have a solution to it now? We don’t have a quick-fix solution other than what is being done right now, which is importation.

“But that is simply not sustainable. For how long can you continue like this? And so, what we are saying is that give yourself a target of the time to completely wind down the importation of petroleum products. Bring stakeholders like the modular refineries and the traders together. We will all put our heads together and then work out a scheme.”

“Saudi Aramco is a purely private-loaned entity. It has shares, it has boards, it runs as a private entity. In the United States, in all the countries where you are seeing self-sufficiency in their refineries, the private sector takes the lead. All the government does is to create an enabling environment to provide support.”