Lokpobiri first raised the issue in Nov, 2023, while fielding questions from State House correspondents after a three-day retreat at the Presidential Villa
By Kehinde Okeowo
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has said only increment in production will prevent shortage in supply of crude oil to newly inaugurated Dangote Petrochemical Refinery, Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri Refinery, Kaduna refinery and other modular refineries in the country.
He made this known in Abuja on Tuesday at the 2024 sector retreat for his ministry, where he expressed fear that these refineries may not get enough crude oil locally for the production of petroleum products.
At the gathering theme: ‘Building Synergy for Enhanced Development in the Oil and Gas Sector.’ the minister also 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.
Speaking at the event, Lokpobiri said: “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.
