sectors to invest in refining, which they won't be able to do because nobody in their right mind would invest money and produce at a loss. says the subsidy removal we hope will enable more people to be refineries. and part of a dirt refinery. our estimate is even a fall of the four refineries we have working at full capacity, will meet the total national demand of the products. in some form of importation we are grateful for that to continue. we need to expand refining capacity and new refineries down the road. in the meantime, we should ensure that our refineries are doing better than they are doing

now. >> hi, bill murray with energy intelligence group. thank you minister for being here. you mentioned the meeting with the world bank. what is it that the government of nigeria is looking for in terms of its help in restructuring and creating the national oil company with the global reach and also what is the timeframe you talk about it being on domain for quite a while. where do we go from here? >> the world bank has had experience in helping other countries to restructure energy industry. and we believe that we can learn a lot from them. from their experience. and also we have facilities to a done this job before. we are looking forward to this, for instance, in the governance

procedures for incorporating joint ventures for national oil company. and also for the other subsidiaries of the national oil companies that will be put in place. governance is one. they can also have structure in the outfits in such a way to enable us to attract the right type of financing so that we don't have to rely on government probation to run the operations or to incorporate joint ventures when he we eventually incorporate. there are many things they can do for us, training of people, developing capacity in their. >> is there a template that are

other examples of oil companies? >> there's no shortage of templates. when we are doing the restructuring, as dr. bogart would tell you, to name just a few, we crafted the bill and the structures that we think would put in place in the place of experience of other countries. we cannot agree with 100% what malaysia did and what brazil did because our own situation is not the same as these countries. go within the limits of the ability to go from the experience we will make sense of it. and also to benchmark our fiscal so it is not too harsh or too generous. our timeframe, i don't know, we

need to pick part of a minimum 12 month to 36 months ended everything moving along nicely. we have to give ourselves enough time to put things right and develop procedures and practices and we're talking with what to do with them is to draw -- what are we going to do. what is the procedure we need to follow to bring us past for the timeframe on the critical part in various stages. [inaudible]

>> thank you for speaking with us today. i think you mentioned that nigeria's oil production capacity was 3.5 to 3.6 barrels today. what is the country's current production level and do you expect that to rise in 2010. and if so, how much i urge you to give go next year? >> they have potential capacity. a lot of the facilities have been damaged, compromise, by the insurgent. so this effort is targeted towards restoring this to its potential capacity. how much it will produce depends on what the market is going for. but we should be ready to use to the max amount of market calls for it. in any event we will maximize our revenues. in the moment, as you know, it

is subject to opec member country. we hope it is until the world economy went down, there was none put in place. the international community covers and not display story note. we don't wait until then. we don't wait for the individuality. [inaudible] current production, if you include crux oil and condensation 2.5. and crude oil is about 1.7. >> in your same next year you could ramp up to 3.7 million? >> i don't know about next year, but certainly it's importation could produce 2.7.

if the amnesty holds and there's peace and quiet in nigeria, i don't know, maybe we need much more than 12 months to restore the facilities. >> do you have an estimate of what it could go to next year if you are allowed to go that tie? >> if we are allowed to go to -- let's say for sake of argument, we could go up to 500 easily. i'm not saying that we are going to do that. but we could if we have to. by the end of next year. >> iran is making the argument that it is saving nuclear energy

for energy purposes. given nigeria's, you know, situation is there any consideration for nigeria to take it measures and resources to produce nuclear energy? >> we have a nuclear energy commission in place and if they hope that we will at the appropriate time go nuclear energy wise. we will diversify as much as possible as an energy source. oil and gas will call because we have wind, solar, and of course nuclear is not taken out. by the way, talking about nuclear, we have discovered uranium in nigeria. so we are in a good position to eventually go nuclear generation if we wanted to. but in the moment, we will concentrate on getting the basic

gasifier, coal fire stations good. but the nuclear option remains available to us if we need to resort to it. >> any other questions? >> david cherry, 21st century science and technology magazine. thank you for coming dr. lukman. did i understand that the government poses to construct another company alongside the nnpc or to restructuring the nnpc were both? my other question is can you say something about the projects, multiple projects, some of which are being called mega projects that are being planned for the delta that of the mont demanded

by the people, groats, rails, hospitals things. >> we have quite a few big projects in the niger delta. most of the plants are affecting the energy in the niger delta. we have three out of 45 resigned and we've got on top of that major infrastructure in the policy sector. so in oil and gas production is from the niger delta and these are really big projects. the major offshore oil-producing facilities and the regime so

there's no shortage of projects to do. >> is very political equation i mean with by ugandan amnesty in the south and the insurgents are willing to do that partly because government commits to building roads and railroads, hospitals, and so on. can you say something about the recent developments on that front quiet >> will don't forget amnesties. we've got a couple of months old and the government in addition to what it is artie doing. don't forget we are to have -- we have a whole ministry of the niger delta which will

specifically gives to the niger delta. we have a commission for the project in the niger delta. they are also involved in this infrastructure problem. what we're trying to do with the amnesty, the very important thing of the government to help do is to rehabilitate the former militants by creating job opportunity, schools, hospitals, returning them to doing more developmental aspects and train them for mundane things like electricians, carpenters, welders, many of these areas require people like that to

train. we have to train them first. you have to give them a use will trade they can deploy and use activities the government is instituting. and if we don't succeed in doing it, we need to keep it out of mischief for too long. it is a very important aspect of what the government is trying to do. can you clarify what changes are being made by the nnpc. >> nnpc is not a public cooperation, political paris actor. we want to incorporate nnpc so that it will be a company on its own right, independent of

government. the shareholder will be beginning and it was without prejudice to eventually impact shares of this company to the private sector or to outsiders. and we want to make sure that nnpc operates as a commercial entity. the nnpc has been required to be concerned with policy, regulation, also concerned with commercial in very confusing for it. and governance is difficult because they don't have a clear-cut mandate. d. in an oil and gas company do nothing but oil and gas and this means completely orienting for what it is now. we call it nnpc because we

retain the acronym. it's very well known acronym instead of nigeria and national petroleum operation will be nigerian national petroleum. >> thank you minister. can i just ask you to clarify. you said nigeria could increase its capacity to produce crude by 500 barrels a day next year. can you clarify what your current output capacity as. i value set 3.52 m-mike 3.6. so i'm confused about the exact levels. will nigeria pump above its greed levels to make up for last oil from the civil unrest? >> i thought you asked that. there's nothing to be confused about. we are potentially we should be

able to produce 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 million barrels. we have the potential capacity. the part of this capacity is being compromised through them until wednesday. now that we have peace. because when the militancy was going on people were being kidnapped oil rigs and funny things were happening. now that there is peace we are able to go back to those facilities, check them out, and try to put them back in the form that they can operate. whether we operate them are not depends on how much oil we want to sell. as we are talking now, at this very moment, we are doing between five and 600 barrels. we are doing about 1.7,

1.8 million barrels of crude oil. that's why we talk about. it fluctuates from day to day. about 2.5 million barrels a day. do you know what they are doing right now? [inaudible] so it changes. the fact that we can produce eventually 3.7 million barrels because they will be against our commitment to opec to moderate the production for the price. we tend to lose more than anybody else at the price collapses. we have invested in a good price for oil. >> we can take one more question.

>> mr. minister i. want to foil out on something you said about the possible privatization in nigeria. do you have a timeframe for such an asset sale? what kind of revenues could you see coming from that and just in general, do you have an expression of interest from other players in the sector? >> well, the privatization from some of the operation as nnpc our being in our view misconceived because the idea that look to privatize everything is owned by the government is frankly nonsense because if we're going to grow nnpc to world-class oil and gas company, there is no way you can exclude them from any part of the oil and gas chain. so we have no problem with

privatization. we've got private public partnership and we are developing right now as we're speaking a model for our privatization of the refineries and we're also looking at refineries that will be jointly built by nnpc. and so that will be private practice patience. we will have to work it out. and talking about advisors, a view of public enterprises. in fact, they went too far. they serve some of our refineries, i will say for nothing, they gave them way. this is not what we should be doing. and when we do privatize we will do it correctly and get good value for them.

have you been to nigeria? >> no. >> you should come and we will take you and show you around. our refineries are state-of-the-art refineries in the world. we've allowed them to go when to misuse and not maintain them properly. but they are some of the best. i commissioned the refinery, the newest of them all, it is one of the best in the world, not just in africa. of course we have run them -- when we eventually privatize, i don't know how good maybe 60%, maybe 40%, but we will allow a dirt. and in the new ones we are building we definitely can give private partnership.

>> minister lukman, today he spoke and expressed some concern about making sure opec doesn't put too much oil in the market, which could lower prices and utah is about how the global economy is still recovering. and you're in the u.s., just today the government revised down the economic growth of american consumer of oil obviously they import a lot. given that the economy and the u.s. and global economy is still going to be recovered, not dare, at least in the first quarter of next year. do you see a need at this point that given what's likely to have an economic in the first quarter that there would be a need for additional oil supplies from opec to meet demand in the first quarter of 08? >> well, we have a very robust in my views, very good work.

we are not looking to the united states or europe for crude oil. we are looking more towards india and china and developing countries of africa. in the rate of growth for china has come out very strongly. so has india to a point. and this is where the incremental divide is going to come from, not from the united states or western europe. and this recovery continues, we think we should be able to sell as much oil as we are selling now. and if it is a bonus and a growth in europe and north studl amounts, then there may be room

for some more incremented in the quantity of oil that we put back. at the moment, i don't see that as such a likelihood, but what i said was in the event of the international market calling for oil in order to keep prices within reasonable level and we are ready to put more out. [inaudible]