Buhari is speaking out about the current fuel issues Nigeria is facing.

Our President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is speaking out
about the current fuel issues Nigeria is facing.
Here are excerpts from a recent interview he had with
Daily Trust:

One burning issue is fuel subsidy. I believe you are
aware of the queues in major cities like Lagos and
Abuja. The fuel importers say they are unsure of the
direction of the new government in this area. Have you
considered maintaining or withdrawing this subsidy or are
you questioning whether it didn’t exist at all?
One of the problems I have, other than the military, is
the petroleum industry where I served for three and a
half years under General Obasanjo. When people start
talking about this subsidy I honestly get confused. I will
tell you this, and I hope it will answer what you want to
know. Back then we had a refinery in Port Harcourt,
which was refining 30,000 barrels a day of Nigerian
crude.
Later, it was upgraded to refine 100,000 barrels a day.
Another refinery was built in Port Harcourt to refine
150,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude. So, Port
Harcourt alone had the capacity to refine 250,000
barrels per day of Nigerian crude.
But when I found myself as the Minister of Petroleum
I set up another refinery in Warri for 100, 000 barrels
per day of Nigerian crude and the Kaduna refinery a
100, 000 barrels per day. So Nigeria built capacity to
refine 450,000 a day.
Four Hundred thousands of which is purely Nigerian
crude, but 50,000 was imported. The type of crude could
be Venezuelan, which could be a bit heavier. But the
lighter ones – kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel, PMS of
different grades could be produced from our crude
because Nigerian crude is about the best in the world.
If you could recall, after finishing as Minister of
Petroleum, I subsequently became Head of State. You
remember, I appointed Professor Tam David West as
the Minister of Petroleum. When we rounded up bunkers,
collected their illegal jetties and allowed jetties for only
big firms which were doing production and development in
the country, we were shocked that we had too much fuel.
We had to begin to export 100,000 barrels per day.
Don’t forget that we didn’t stop at building refineries, we
built more than 20 depots during my time, from Port
Harcourt to Ilorin, Makurdi, Suleija, Maiduguri and Kano.
More than 3,000 pipelines were laid to connect them. A
number of stations were also built to take the trailers
off the road, save lives and the infrastructure on the
road. It is more economical because each trailer uses
fuel.
We did all that in this country and we didn’t borrow any
money as far as I know. It’s Nigerian money. From each
Nigerian crude, whether Akwa Ibom, Bonny Light or
whatever it is, you can work out how much products it will
give you; how much petrol it will give you; how much
diesel it will give you if you want to produce diesel. We
could tell how much Nigerian crude cost, the cost of
transportation from there to the refinery, the cost of
refining, the cost of transportation to the pump stations
and maybe 5 per cent go for overhead. I can
understand if Nigerians pay for those costs. But
somebody is saying he is subsidizing Nigerians. Who is
subsidizing who?
But they argue that the price should not be the same in
Lagos and Daura, for example?
It has to be the same because it is the Nigerian crude.
But they consider the cost of transportation?
Why didn’t it make any difference when we were around?
Why did we build the network of pipelines? Why did we
build the network of depots? What can Nigerians benefit
from the God-given gift of petroleum?
No refinery is built unless there is an in-depth research
that there is enough reserve of up to six layers to be
produced.
The argument I have heard is that refineries are aged.
Mostly, they are performing at less than half of their
capacity…?
You can’t defend these corrupt and incompetent people.
You can’t defend them. There used to be what they call
turn-around-maintenance. You close the refinery in order
to overhaul and clean it. What we did: we asked our
producers, we need various refined products of this type
at this time when the refineries are being cleaned. Take
this type of Nigerian crude and bring us the refined
products.
What we don’t need, we will calculate and pay you as
fees for refining and transportation. If it is more than
what the crude can handle, then we take it from the
treasury. But you are trying to justify all these frauds
by saying the refineries are aged.
Of course, they are actually aged?
They said the refineries are aged. The pipelines are
leaking. There is vandalisation. Who ordered the
vandalisation?
Does it suggest that you don’t believe in the subsidy?
So, you are not going to agree to its continuation in
anyway?
I would like to be on ground and find out what really
has been going wrong. Why is it that people are doing
round-tripping with the Nigerian products and take money
from the treasury? Some people are still in court. You
know about it. So, I’m not taking anything for granted.
But I will try and find out what went wrong.

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