Business
Nigeria on track to privatizing 4 state run oil refineries in 2014
Kaduna Refinery
(Bloomberg) – Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, plans to begin privatizing its 4 state-owned oil refineries before the end of the first quarter of next year, petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke said.
“We would like to see major infrastructural entities such as refineries moving out of government hands into the private sector,” Alison-Madueke told reporters. “The federal government does not want to be in the business of running major infrastructure entities and we haven’t done a very good job at it over all these years.”
A presidential audit of the facilities last year recommended their sale due to inadequate government funding and “sub-optimal performance.” The refineries, which have a combined 445,000 barrel-a-day capacity, should be privatized within 18 months, according to the report submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan in November 2012.
Nigeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), produced 1.99 million barrels a day of crude in October, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
While Nigeria is also Africa’s top crude exporter and the most populous with more than 160 million people, it relies on fuel imports to meet more than 70 percent of its needs. Its state-owned plants operate at a fraction of their capacity because of poor maintenance and aging equipment.
The country exchanges 60,000 barrels a day of crude for products with Trafigura Beheer BV and a similar amount with Societe Ivoirienne de Raffinage’s refinery in Ivory Coast, according to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
“We are right now undergoing a major turnaround maintenance program” of the refineries, Alison-Madueke said.
