Ensuring Nigeria’s Refineries Work Again At Optimal Capacity.. Energy News Stream Editorial

The very bad state of the Nigerian refineries and their inability to work at optimal capacity, is no longer news, at least to the average citizen in the country .

The Kaduna, port harcourt, and warri refineries built in the 1970’s to enable the country refine it’s crude oil products locally, have all become a shadow, going by years of negligence, corruption, and complete loss of focus on knowing what to do by successive administrations since the advent of democracy in 1999, which has prevented comprehensive maintenance on the structures, despite huge resources appropriated for the purpose in the last decades.

It has become a shame and national embarrassment for a country like Nigeria, whose survival is largely dependant on oil, to still rely on foreign support to get it’s crude oil refined externally.

Several challenges such as crude oil theft, illegal export of premium motor spirit continue to pose serious challenge to the oil sector in Nigeria amidst what appears to be government seemingly inability to address the issues, creating an almost hopeless situation, in our very hands as a country.

Several discuss have been structured around the bad state of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector in the past, vis-a-vis the sorry state of the nation’s refineries , this latest attempt, by the editorial team at energy news stream is to sustain the conversation and keep it in the front burner of national discuss with a view to ensuring that those in authority are kept on their toe to keep them focused on the sustained need to get the refineries back to work again at optimal capacity.

That Nigeria can still be passing through periods of petrol scarcity sixty four years after nationhood calls to question, the capacity of those whose responsibility it is to strengthen policies, that will create the right kind of environment required to drive a process where the country’s God’s given natural gift can be accessed seamlessly without challenges.

It is also the standpoint of energy news stream that all policy pronouncements by this current administration under president bola tinubu as it relates to the nation’s oil and gas sector shouldn’t be mere rhetorics designed to play to the gallery, but a calculated and proactive effort to ensure that the required policy reforms are created and designed to bring about the needed tools to drive development in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, now that there are assurances that some of the nation’s refineries have reached the highest stage of maintenance and refurbishment, to bring them back to life before the end of the year, 2024.