Kyari, who spoke when he appeared before the House of Representative Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), headed by Abdullahi Gaya, over the rising cost of the products, also attributed the problem to vandalism of the oil facilities, which he said was responsible for the decline in production.
According to him, a few days there was a massive attack on one of the facilities and 27, 000 barrels were lost overnight, even as he said that non-functioning of the refineries in the country is also part of it.
Kyari said that besides the fact the Russia-Ukraine war was affecting the supply of products across the world, most major oil companies were also shutting down due to the energy transmission to eliminate fossil fuels.
He said that the unavailability of Foreign Exchange (FX) as a result of inadequate exports, was another reason for the problem.
He said that interventions are in place to ensure production improves in July to address some of the FX challenges.
Kyari also cautioned against suggestions that subsidies should be made available for diesel.
“In our country, we do not produce AGO (diesel) and we regret that our refineries are not working. Are we doing anything about it? Yes. We are working on getting them back to work. But they will not come back tomorrow.
“As a matter of fact, we have decided to do a quick fix for the Warri refinery. The reason is simple. We do not want to go the long route of doing comprehensive turnaround maintenance because we are concerned.”
