Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, says the corporation has stopped importing refined petroleum products.
Kyari said this on Monday at the 42nd Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) annual international conference and exhibition in Lagos.
While delivering his keynote address, the NNPCL boss said the national oil company is now off-taking fuel from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and other local refineries.
“Today, NNPC does not import any product, we are taking only from domestic refineries,” he said.
On October 11, the federal government announced the deregulation of the downstream sector, allowing other marketers to buy directly from the refinery and ending the NNPC’s sole off-taker role.
On domestic refining, the GCEO denied media reports that the NNPC is a saboteur of domestic refining by not supporting local refineries.
“The point is very far from it and I’m going to speak to it straight. We are very proud part-owners of Dangote refinery, no doubt about it,” Kyari said.
“We saw an opportunity that there is a clear market for at least 300,000 barrels of our production; we know that as time moves on, people will start struggling to find markets for their production.
“It will happen, It’s already happening. Oil is found, as you know, in many unexpected locations across the world and people have choices.
“Therefore, we saw an opportunity to log supply to the domestic refinery, not just Dangote but any other refinery that operates in the country, so it was a very informed business decision.
“Therefore, from day one, we knew that it is to our benefit to supply crude oil to the domestic refinery, so we don’t need to be persuaded; we don’t need anyone to talk to us, there is no need for any pressure from the streets for us to do this. We are already doing this.”
Addressing calls for Nigeria to domesticate its oil, the NNPC boss said Nigerian crude is ’Lamborghini crude’, so the products would be pricey, adding that the issue of high-quality fuel is relative.
“We should never forget that Nigerian crude is ’Lamborghini crude’, if we choose that every product that we have in this country must come from domestic production, then we must deal with pricing,” he said.
“Otherwise, out there in the global market, everybody buys Nigerian crude and blends it with dirtier crude to process, a lot of you will confirm this.
