*NNPC CEO, Mr. Mele Kyari
Information reaching us has it that the Nigeria government is in talks with two United States of America (USA) companies, namely: Bechtel and KBR to help the country sought out the challenges of petroleum refining and other projects in the oil and gas sector, especially in the state-run refineries.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Mr. Mele Kyari who disclosed this on Friday also said Nigeria is in conversations with U.S. companies including Bechtel and KBR regarding potential projects including oil refineries, pipelines and gas projects.
Kyari, who spoke at a Webinar organised by the Atlantic Council said Nigeria is working toward ending refined petroleum products importations in the next three years. According to him, the government is aiming to make a final investment decision on building a condensate splitter, a simple refinery that can process extra-light crude, by July.
He said the system will have a capacity of 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) initially, rising to 200,000 bpd, which he claimed is part of the new approach the country is taking to fix the nation’s ailing refineries and would seek partnerships with private companies to finance, fix and run them. Kyari stated, “We have a new framework. This will enable others to help us.”
Efforts to revamp the refineries have failed for years, and NNPC shut them down entirely in April. But Kyari said he was confident they could get them up and running again. He also spoke on Nigeria’s compliance with the OPEC+ attempt to cut crude oil output, noting that the country’s current daily oil production over complies with its promised cuts under an agreement among major oil producers.
Kyari said that if all countries that are part of the OPEC+ deal complied, there would be no need to extend the agreement into August. He said that Nigeria had not complied completely with its promised cuts in past months, but that its current reductions would ensure that it had made up for that by July. “Our actual daily production indicates we’re in an overconforming situation,” he said. He, however, did not disclose the production figure for the current month.
