The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited invest in regional refineries rather than operating government-owned ones.

FG intends to encourage the national oil firm to acquire shares in the planned and existing private refineries.

Lokpobiri made this declaration at the inaugural meeting of the Crude Oil Refineries Owners Association of Nigeria in Lagos on Tuesday, October 8, 2024.

In his speech, the oil minister said that FG intends to encourage the national oil firm to acquire shares in the planned and existing private refineries instead of operating them.

This is coming after the NNPC limited its ownership of the Dangote refinery to 7.2% as opposed to the originally agreed 20%.

Refinery still not operating

A report by Punch indicated that despite spending about $4 billion, the NNPC has not restored any of the moribund government refineries. For about seven times, the company assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery would commence production.

However, the situation remains the same as of September ending.

Speaking on Tuesday, Lokpobiri said the government was asking the NNPC to run the four government refineries on a different model, recalling that an advertisement was recently placed by the NNPC to give out the refineries to private sectors for optimal delivery.

He said: “We intend to encourage the national oil company to take up equity with the upcoming and already established private refineries rather than running refineries.

"We will encourage NNPC Ltd to run the four governmental refineries on a different model. And you will recall that an advertisement was recently placed by the NNPC Ltd to give out refineries to private sectors to run optimally.”