Nigeria Content Online

The Nigeria National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) is to commence marketing of refined oil to U.S., Brazil and
other parts of the world to boost the revenue base of the corporation.

The Group Managing Director of NNPC,
Austen Oniwon, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in
Brasilia on Wednesday.

Mr Oniwon said already the
Corporation, which hitherto had been exporting crude oil to the U.S., had
concluded arrangements with Brazil’s Oil company, Petrobras, toward
the realisation of this objective.

He said the NNPC had since
indicated its interest to invest in Petrobras’s plan to expand its
refinery in Texas, U.S., from 100,000 barrels to 200,000 barrels per day.

“We indicated to them our interest
to partner with the company to have an outlet into American market instead
of exporting just crude to the American market.

“We can take Nigerian crude, which
is also going into American market anyway, into this refinery,
process and sell as value added product into the American
market.

“This is something that is going to
be beneficial to NNPC and Nigeria as a country,” he said.

Mr Oniwon further told NAN that the
NNPC and Petrobras had concluded discussion to enter into a relationship in the
areas of oil exploration and production, refining and petro-chemical, oil
marketing and trading, gas and power development as well as research and
development.

He said officials of Petrobras
would be coming to Nigeria in February to sign a Memoranda of
Understanding (MOU) with the NNPC for the take off of the partnership.

“They (Petrobras) hope that we
will be able to jointly explore the vast hydro carbon deposit in Nigeria
especially in the deep offshore since the MOU is going to
embrace worldwide operations.

“As partners we will be
able to join Petrobas to operate in their businesses and share their
assets outside Nigeria,” he added.

The GMD said he hoped that the MOU
would also enable Nigeria to develop its gas sector for the smooth operation of
the various power plants being constructed in the country.

According to him, President Goodluck
Jonathan has focused on the development of power plants in Nigeria and most of
these would be driven by gas.

He, therefore, stressed the need for
Nigeria to develop its gas sub-sector, primarily for domestic consumption to
power the power sector.

Mr Oniwon also said he was
optimistic that the MOU would address the challenges of infrastructural
deficiencies in the nation’s oil and gas sector.

“We need partners because the
infrastructure that is going to deliver this gas to the various power
plants is inadequate at the moment and their provision is going to cost a lot
of money.

“But with the new government
policy whereby the cost of power has been reviewed upward, it has made
business and investments in gas project very lucrative

“We believe that Petrobras
will be eager to join with NNPC to develop the gas resources primarily for
domestic use and for export because they are also short of gas in
Brazil,” he said

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NAN