Indications emerged on Monday about the new plans of the Federal Government to halt lifting of raw crude by multinationals in Nigeria.
These views were expressed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, on Monday when he said multinational oil firms would soon not ship out all the crude oil they produce in Nigeria.
Kachikwu made the declaration in Abuja at a break-out session of the maiden Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) titled “Deepening collaboration in the African oil and gas industry – challenges and opportunities for investment”.
According to him, the government is planning to put frameworks in place for the multinational oil and gas firms to build refineries in Nigeria thereby processing a substantial amount of crude that is produced from its oil fields.
“We would get to a point where Nigeria, definitely, would be a major supplier of refined petroleum products.
“It just has to happen. Nothing else makes sense. We are also saying directly to oil companies that a time would also come when we would not be open to see them move around all the crude oil they produce in Nigeria.
“We will like to see integrated refining and integrated processing here. It gives us more jobs and creates more investments,” Kachikwu said.
Continuing he said currently, the nation had an average in-country refining capacity of 14 per cent, but this would be upgraded to between 90-95 per cent in 10 months to meet rising demands.
Kachikwu said henceforth oil had to provide the resources to power the country, provide jobs for Nigerians and provide the operational environment transparent enough for others to take Nigeria serious.
