‘Buhari will end petrol importation’

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, yesterday insisted that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration would end importation of petroleum products into the country.

The minister, who made the comment after inspecting a hydro-skimming private modular refinery in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, said reversing Nigeria’s status as a net importer of refined petroleum products was critical.

The refinery, which Sylva said was about 75 per cent completed, has the capacity to process 12, 000 barrels of crude per day.In a statement, the spokesman for the company, Austin Ebipade, quoted the minister as saying that the refinery would facilitate the Federal Government’s objectives towards attaining self-sufficiency in the production of refined products such as petrol, diesel, aviation fuel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

“The Azikel private refinery is important to Nigerians and the country’s search for economic prosperity. It is set to actualise the ‘export’ of refined products from Bayelsa State to other states in the country.”

with daily production of 1.5 million litres of petrol, one million litres of diesel and 500,000 litres of kerosene and aviation fuel, thereby reversing the stigma of Nigeria, the world’s fifth largest producer of crude oil, being a net importer of refined products.”

Sylva, a former governor of Bayelsa, said that the people-focused dream of Buhari to industrialise the Niger Delta, boost infrastructure development and facilitate employment-creation was being dynamically achieved through the Azikel Refinery.