By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources in charge of oil, Mr Heineken Lokpobiri, has disclosed that the Kaduna Refinery was not built to refine Nigerian crude oil.
Speaking on Wednesday on Channels Television, he said the facility was calibrated to process heavy crude oil like the one from Venezuela.
According to him, the crude grade of Nigeria is light, and cannot be refined in the Kaduna Refinery, reason why it only processes foreign crude oil.
“What I said was that Nigeria had always imported crude based on the peculiarities of the refineries, and that is why I was giving an example of the Kaduna Refinery. We were importing crude oil from Venezuela.
“Nigeria’s crude is one of the lightest crude in the world. It is one of the sweetest crudes in the world. Some refineries are not calibrated for that.
“That was why the Kaduna Refinery was meant to refine very thick crude oil. So, they were importing from Venezuela. So, it is not happening for the first time,” Mr Lokpobiri said while speaking on President Bola Tinubu’s first year in office.
Nigeria recently earmarked billions of Dollars for the rehabilitation of the moribund refineries in the country but none of them have started to work optimally.
The Kaduna Refinery, known as the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited, was built in 1988, with the capacity to refine 110,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Adedapo Adesanya