Pengassan, IPMAN Butt Head Over Sale of Refineries

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, has moved against the proposal by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, that the nation’s four refineries be sold.

PENGASSAN,in its argument stated that it is a fraudulent way of ripping the country off its national assets.

The Port Harcourt refinery is Nigeria’s oldest, built in 1965, nine years after crude was first found under the marshy soil and creeks of the delta, where the Niger river meanders to the Gulf of Guinea.

Refineries in nearby Warri and Kaduna in the north central region were built in the years that followed, while a new plant was added to the same site in Port Harcourt in 1989.

In recent years, however, it became a byword for corruption, a murky, state-run body where billions of dollars in revenue apparently disappeared.

PENGASSAN National Public Relations Officer, NPRO, Emmanuel Ojugbana, who spoke on the issue described the call by IPMAN as sabotage against national interest.

He commended the efforts of the government in ensuring that the four state owned refineries were back on stream, especially with the recent report credited to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, that the Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries would soon commence production after a long while.

Ojugbana said: “Nigerians need to ask the IPMAN leadership why they want the refineries which can be said to be in good form now to be sold as scrap. Even when the government has shown that the refineries can work and take care of 75 per cent of the nation’s local demand of refined products.

The proof that the refineries are still viable and profitable was exhibited by the Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC, which posted a net profit of N11.2 billion for December 2014, representing N8.2 billion or 250 per cent above the N3.2 billion posted by the company in preceding November 2014. This is attributed to the improved financial performance for the phased rehabilitation programme, which was done by the workers.

“The challenge confronting the functionality of the refineries is not the ownership. We have examples of countries even in West Africa such as Ghana and Chad Republic, just to mention a few where refineries are owned by the government.