Business
How we will improve the Petroleum industry in 2017 – Ibe Kachikwu reveals
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, says the federal government will pass the Petroleum Industry Bill and revamp the nation’s refineries in 2017.
Mr. Kachikwu who made this known while highlighting the plans of the petroleum ministry for 2017, disclosed that government will dissect the nation’s oil and gas policies for optimum productivity.
He also assured that the ministry will accelerate revenue generation by looking into areas the government could make more money, stressing that the plan will enable it support the 2017 financing.
The minister said that apart from completing all outstanding Memoranda of Understanding, MOU, the government will leverage on the relationship the president has built over time to relate with foreign investors.
Mr. Kachikwu said in addition to trips to the United States and China, he will also embark on a roadshow to the gulf so that the Nigeria will cease to be a forgotten state and become an active participation block where investment can flow into.
“We are going to receive and complete all the MOUs that we began… the one in China…the one in India… we are going to do a roadshow to the UK…for Europe. We are going to do a roadshow to the U.S. with President Donald Trump coming in,” Mr. Kachikwu said.
While commenting on the activities embarked upon in the outgone year, Mr. Kachikwu explained that the government was able to take away fraud impacted volume by reducing the volume of PMS the nation consumes daily from N50 million litres to N28 million litres.
He assured Nigerians that the nation’s oil industry will be run transparently, as against the opaque manner it was run in the past.
Mr. Kachikwu also confirmed that oil blocks will also be allocated in 2017, to partly fund the budget.
Oil refineries
Commenting on the state of the nation’s oil refineries, the minister said the president has given him a matching order to commence refinery revamp. He reiterated the government’s plan to diversify the refining process so that the refineries can work optimally, noting that the process will begin this year.
Mr. Kachikwu also said that the government will work within liberalisation infrastructure such that it will take away the low hanging difficulties in the industry.
“We will focus on downstream issues. Although we have liberalised, there are still some challenges. The reality is that the marketers are still suffering,” he said.
Niger Delta
The minister also pledged to look into security concerns in the Niger Delta region, stressing that government will ensure that the peace efforts put in place are maintained and improved upon.
“We are going to focus on the Niger Delta. It’s been too long a lingering issue. We are going to work with every aspect of the presidency to try and find solutions to this. We are going to work to stabilise oil production… a lot of work is required.”
Mr. Kachikwu also assured industry players that government will develop agreement and opportunities on international oil companies, IOCs, and partners for better collaboration through engaging policies that will bring investment into the country. He said the ministry will run an oil industry that is at par with its counterparts worldwide; adding that efforts will be strengthened on investor relations.
On oil production, the minister said government will begin for the first time to track oil movement from production to destination, noting that there are too many leakages in the oil production chain in Nigeria.
“This year we are going to commit to trying to find a way of tracking our oil so that from the moment when molecule is produced, to the time when it is sold and where it is sold, we will be able to track that. If we do that, we envisage billions of dollars in savings from the federal government.”
Private sector driven industry
While highlighting the challenges associated with public sector driven system, Mr. Kachikwu pledged to ensure that the industry is driven by private hands in 2017. He said that the industry has always been public sector-led and there have been problems.
He also promised to create a “private sector industry player club” to chart 2017 goals and mark out delivery system.
“Public sector is key to be able to regulate the sector and make sure people are operating within parameters; but ultimately, the infrastructure, investment, services and discipline have to be private sector led.
“We will galvanise the energy of the private sector within the first two months,” he said.
Gas revolution
According to the minister, gas revolution will form a key aspect of the government’s policy for the year and it would boost government revenue.
“Gas revolution will be key. First, we are going to track gas flare and commercialise it so that no more flare happen in this country. We have set a 2020 date for ourselves even though the international fora at the UN had set a 2030 date. We are very aggressive about this, we want to make money from flare,” he said.
Mr. Kachikwu also promised that the government will look at the gas infrastructure that are suffering, complete the investment and get gas in every part of the country because it is key to power delivery.
The minister said the nation has four times volume of gas than oil, adding that even though oil has contributed immensely to the nation’s growth, gas is the future. He explained that gas will provide power, clean energy, and day-to-day burning of fuel at homes.
“For so long we have pretended to be an oil producing nation and yes we were; but Nigeria really is a gas nation with a lot of substantial gift of oil.”
Stakeholders’ relations
The minister promised to give priority to stakeholders’ relation in the year, noting that periodicals will be published to highlight activities embarked upon towards achieving the industry’s goals.
He explained that the efforts will begin with a road show with state governments, adding that oil producing states will be brought together to look at long term dynamic investments areas across the states as well as how they engage companies in their states.
“This year we are going to be open, we are going to be as much the manager of the oil resource as I am going to be. We are going to owe the responsibility to the Nigerian nation to deliver on those blueprints that we have set ourselves to deliver.”
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
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