Petroleum downstream deregulation will ensure products availability – Maku

Kaduna – The Federal Government, on Sunday, said the
planned deregulation of the downstream sector of the
petroleum industry was to ensure availability of products to
Nigerians.
The Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, said this in
Kaduna during an inspection tour of the Kaduna Refining and
Petrochemical Company (KRPC).
Maku said deregulation was the best solution to problems in
the sector.
He added that middlemen and other players in the industry
had taken advantage of government's monopoly in the
industry to shortchange the country.
Maku cited sale of kerosene as an example: "unless
government deregulates this sector, middlemen will continue
to feed fat on the sweat of the poor masses.''
He said that deregulation would not only open up the market
and give Nigerian kerosene consumers options to select from
but would address the challenges created by middlemen.
The minister commended the present management of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for its
ingenuity in the management of the nation's refineries.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Andrew Yakubu, said
deregulation would promote efficiency in the oil industry.
He said that the planned partial privatisation of the nation's
refineries was aimed at addressing the perennial problems
associated with the management of the companies by
government.
Yakubu said that privatisation would also enable government
to channel resources, previously used for maintenance, to
other needs.
The Acting Managing Director of KRPC, Mr Bafred Anjugu,
said the company recorded some milestones in 2013.
He said that the engineers of the KRPC had "re-streamed" the
fluid catalytic cracking unit which had been down since 2005.
Anjugu said the company was refining each of the assorted
products per month and would attain 90 per cent production
capacity by the time the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM)
was completed.
The acting managing director said the company would
generate about N1trillion per year from the sale of products
after TAM and would also attain 330 days of operation per
annum.
Anjugu said the company's production capacity was presently
limited by the menace of vandalism of pipeline and other
peculiar challenges.
The team visited the 56 mega watts power plant in the
company as well as the drum and tin manufacturing factories
at the refinery complex.

Via: (NAN)