Grace Omachoko
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the nation’s four refineries located in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna state will never work as long as the government continues to hold onto them.
Obasanjo stated this in an interview with TheCable, adding that Shell Oil Development Company turned down his offer for them to run the refineries.
Speaking on the state of Nigeria’s refineries, Obasanjo disclosed that refineries would never see the light of day due to the powers that is laced with too much corruption in the nation’s refineries.
“They will not work as long as the government is keeping hold of them. When I was president, I invited Shell to a meeting. I told them I wanted to hand over the refineries for them to help us run. They bluntly told me they would not. I was shocked.” He said
Obasanjo revealed that after much persuasion, the managing director of Shell, at the time, listed four reasons the oil company wouldn’t get involved in running Nigeria’s refineries.
“I repeated the request and they stood their ground. When the meeting was over, I asked their big man (MD) to wait behind for a little chat. Then I asked him why they were so hesitant on not taking over the refineries. He said did I want to hear the truth? I said yes. He listed four reasons.
“One, Shell makes its money from upstream and that is where its interest lies. Two, they only do downstream or retail as a matter of service. Three, our refineries would be bad business for them, and that globally, companies are going for bigger refineries because of the economics of refineries. Fourth, there is too much corruption in refineries.”
NEWSTODAYNG recalled that President Bola Tinubu in August assured that the petroleum refinery in Port Harcourt will start working by December 2023.
