The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abhay Thakur, has disclosed his country’s readiness to offer the Nigerian government a credit line that would see to the revival of its four key refineries across the country, and other oil industry infrastructure.
The High Commissioner informed of his country’s readiness to offer such support during a visit to the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Mele Kyari.
“India is prepared to offer Nigeria and particularly the NNPC a credit line mechanism to help her in the areas of refinery maintenance, construction, security, surveillance and anything possible. Our expertise in Information Technology (IT) is available as well. We are ready to cooperate with NNPC to boost our bilateral relations,” Thakur asserted.
Nigeria has four refineries located in Port Harcourt (two), Warri and Kaduna, with a combined daily refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day. However, they have been comatose for over ten years as they hardly produce over five percent of their installed capacity.
Read Also: https://businessday.ng/backpage/article/industrialisation-lessons-from-indias-model/
This has forced Nigeria to depend on 100 percent importation of refined products to meet local consumption.
On the back of the visit, NNPC in a discussion with the High Commissioner expressed its readiness to continue to supply 10 per cent of India’s crude oil demand in the face of competing demand for the product from other countries.
Speaking during the visit, Kyari stated that Nigeria, through the corporation, would continue to support India’s energy security, adding that the recent Memorandum of Understanding in the area of energy between Nigeria and India would be consummated to further strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries.
Kyari noted that NNPC was desirous of growing the energy cooperation with India and that it was time to progress from just talking to walking the talk.
He said India was a very important market and that NNPC would ensure that the current volume of crude oil supply from Nigeria to India is secured for the collective interest of both countries.
“We are ready to have a robust engagement with the Indian trade team to provide a win-win energy scenario between us. Every trade opportunity that is available would be fully explored,” Kyari posited.
He averred that there were lots of untapped investment opportunities in the nation’s Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and expressed the willingness of NNPC to aggressively improve LPG infrastructure and consumption in the country.
In his earlier remarks, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria lauded the management of the corporation for the recent renewal of the crude oil term contracts for three Indian companies and sued for increment in the crude oil supply in view of the increasing energy needs of India.
He disclosed that India was ready to provide credit line mechanisms and expertise to help NNPC revamp its massive infrastructure across the country.
The Indian High Commissioner also congratulated Kyari on his appointment as the Group Managing Director of NNPC, noting that the confidence placed in him was well considered for national interest.
