Private Refinery: FG Disqualifies All 18 Applicants
By Olawale Olaleye
Hopes for an early stoppage of fuel importation dimmed yesterday following the disqualification of all the 18 applicants desirous of establish private refineries in the country.
Mr M.A. Ofurhie, Director in the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR) who dropped the hint noted that none of the 18 applicants appeared serious enough to qualify to own such sensitive facilities.
Ofurhie said this during a facility tour of OBAT tank farm. He noted that "we at DPR will encourage you to come forward to establish refinery," adding that the government was therefore ready to encourage serious investors.
Interestingly, Mr. President has said that Nigeria must refine 50% of her crude oil locally by year 2010. And we at the DPR are sure that people like Prince Akinrintan will be able to actualise the dream."
He said he was sure that with the coming of OBAT, significant improvement in level delivery would be achieved, thanking him for assisting the administration's policy on deregulation.
"The government really appreciates your contributions. With more of OBAT, the government and the people of Nigeria will have more peace and less pressure from trying to regulate prices. Ideally, we should not be regulating prices which should be left for the market forces", he stated.
Earlier in his speech, OBAT chairman, Akinrintan said they have been looking forward to such opportunity to take care of Nigerians and that the facilities in place would help the national economy, industries and government.
He assured the DPR team that what they had seen on display, is the most modern equipment in the industry and OBAT would use it to the benefit of the system, adding that they have the capacity to load between 400 to 500 petrol tankers a day.
"Now we have proved here that Nigerians can do it, we have the best equipment in Nigeria and Africa. Here, we are the largest and most modern and the 3rd such in the world", adding that "having achieved this, what we are now urging the DPR to do is to facilitate our efforts to set up our own private refinery," he said.
According to him, the company is planning to build the first phase which would be able to refine 50 litres per day, noting that with what is at OBAT, the construction of refineries would not be a problem. He said they have 27 depots as at the moment.
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