The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu on Thursday announced that the Federal Government planning to engage private investors to build new refineries amidst the current old ones.

Kachikwu, also revealed that two of the country’s current refineries are likely to begin operations before the end of December.

In September, 2015, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), gave a 90-day ultimatum to the management of the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical companies for renovation.

The GMD, disclosed the Federal Government’s plans for the refineries at an interactive session with the National Assembly in Abuja.

Kachikwu, reaffirm to the legislators that from the reports with him, two of the refineries might commence operations before the end of 2015.

“Efforts are on to engage private investors to build new refineries within the old ones to enable the refineries to share power, pipelines and other resources”, he said.

He added that the country’s oil output as at July was at 2.1 million bpd and NNPC’s equity production was 99,000 bpd. Gas to power generation was about 3,000 megawatts and domestic gas supply was one billion standard cubic feet, with the addition of 600 Mmscf from NPDC.

The minister advised that a private sector model that will revive the effective supply and distribution of petroleum products, particularly in the area of pipeline assets, should be introduced.

According to Punch News, pipeline vandalism had brought about huge losses of crude and petroleum products in the country. Approximately 27,967 occurrences of pipeline vandalism were detailed in the last few years.