Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), has explained that lots of money will go into the rehabilitation of the country’s loss-making oil refineries due to the world-class facilities in view.
Appearing before the House of Representatives’ Ad Hoc Committee on the State of Refineries in Nigeria, Kyari who was summoned over the consumption and the state of the country’s refineries, noted that the facilities have been mismanaged in past decades.
According to him, considering the structures in the works, and the world-class contractors entrusted with the projects, a lot was required.
His words: “We recognise that today, none of our refineries are operating for a very obvious reason that I am sure, through the work of this committee, you will find out why they are not operating today. We will hide nothing from you. We will also tell you where we are as we speak.
“Needless is to say that the refineries were essentially not properly managed over time, not just today but in the last 20 to 25 years. The turnaround maintenance processes were clearly mismanaged over time. We clearly admit that those turnaround maintenances were not properly done in the past, leading to where we are.
“When we took over, it is very obvious that what you are dealing with is not turnaround maintenance; you are dealing with a total rehabilitation. The refineries were clearly in situations where ordinary turnaround maintenance would not solve the problem. We have degradation of a monumental proportion that we met. And of course, the only way you can do this is to conduct full turnaround maintenance.
“Even when you rehabilitate the refineries, you must have the pipelines. As we speak now, the pipeline from Escravos, which will feed the Warri refinery and ultimately the Kaduna refinery cannot carry the two refineries as we speak now. This is for many reasons; one is the act of vandals.
“Needless is to say that the rehabilitation work must also be complemented with the replacement of the pipeline network. We are also working on this. It is a very critical component of what we are doing.”
