The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has expressed fear that the newly inaugurated Dangote Petrochemical Refinery, Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri Refinery, Kaduna refinery and modular refineries in the country may not get enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products without increase in production in the sector.
Lokpobiri expressed this fear on Tuesday at the 2024 sector retreat for the ministry in Abuja, with the theme: ‘Building Synergy for Enhanced Development in the Oil and Gas Sector.’
The minister said the retreat was convened to discuss how to achieve the targets and mandates set for the ministry by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the ministerial retreat held in November, 2023.
“The first target is to see how we can ramp up production, and then we can meet our target in terms of increase in revenue, meet our obligation in the mid-stream and upstream.
“One of the challenges I am afraid of is, if we finish fixing our refineries, we will be unable to get feed stocks. It will be very embarrassing that we finish Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Warri and Dangote and BUA and we don’t have feed stocks,” he said.
Lokpobiri had first raised the issue in November, 2023, while fielding questions from State House correspondents after the end of a three-day retreat at the Presidential Villa.
