Nigeria is salivating for the fuel products to be churned out of Dangote refinery by 2018 to solve its perennial fuel shortage permanently.
Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu, gave this indication on Tuesday in Abuja, adding that the ministry will also depend on other sources of refining petrol and private refineries.
Kachikwu shocked members of the Senate Committee on Petroleum(Upstream) that the four old refineries in the country could not meet local demand of petrol even if they functioned at optimal capacity. He said the refineries if repaired, could not even meet up to 50 per cent demand.
He said that the design of the refineries had already created gaps in refining Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) even if the refineries were to function at full capacity.
“The design of the Nigerian refineries was such that the component of PMS versus other products was almost a 50/50 per cent relationship. Most world refineries now provide PMS to about 70 to 80 per cent ratio.
“So, even if the refineries work as being designed today, they will still provide less than 50 per cent of what we consume in this country. In any case, it is geared to producing only half of that, but the design of the PMS quotient of the total production is only 50 per cent.
“So, even if it worked perfectly, we will still have a gap, this is why we have gone to try and increase the capacity,” he said.