As the Federal Government strives to deepen
private sector participation in the oil and gas sector, the Society of
Petroleum Engineers, SPE, Nigerian Council has advised against selling
the assets at this time as the government would not get the fair value
from the assets due to the heavy crash of the global price of crude oil.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja on its forthcoming 2020
Oloibiri Lecture and Energy Forum Series, the Chairman of the SPE
Nigeria Council, Mr. Joe Nwakwue regretted that Nigeria has been unable
to revamp the ailing refineries after several years of collapse because
of insufficient political and institutional will to manage its assets.
Nwakwue explained that the refineries can be revamped,
adding that the problems of the facilities were not technical but
institutional.
He said: “Running refineries is not rocket science.
Refineries are run everywhere in the world. I had worked in a company
whose refinery was built in 1932, is still running till today.
“That we cannot run the refineries here have more to do
with institutional challenges than technical challenges. We can see that
private refineries are coming and they would be run. It is not that we
cannot run refineries, Nigeria can run refineries.
“It talks to a deeper issue; the failure of the state to
do what needed to be done. I believe that the move towards private
sector refining is the answer. The refineries are not working not
because running refineries is rocket science, but because we have not
put our house in order.”
He also blamed the divestment of international oil
companies from the Nigerian downstream petroleum industry on
government’s participation in the sector.
Nwakwue said: “The disposal from the downstream sector
is because it is difficult to compete against a state-owned entity. So
why would you create a situation where the NNPC becomes a major supplier
of the market and you expect those entities to exist and continue to
compete with an NNPC? It does not.
“No sensible investor goes to compete against a
state-owned entity, because you will not win. This is because the
state-owned entity has all the power and strength of the state behind
it. You cannot win. Your best bet is to partner with the entity.”
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