Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, yesterday told the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee investigating the state of refineries in Nigeria that 25 years of bad management was responsible for the poor state of the country’s refineries.
Speaker of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, had on January 26, constituted the adhoc committee to work with NNPC, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, and other relevant stakeholders to obtain the needed information for the assignment. The committee, in two separate letters, dated February 24 and March 17, 2022, requested the NNPC boss to present a status report on the state of the country’s refineries.
Addressing the lawmakers, the NNPC GMD apologised for being absent in the committee’s previous sittings, but assured that total rehabilitation of the refineries was underway.
Kyari said NNPC followed due process and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) granted approval for the overhaul of the Port Harcourt Refinery. He said a contract of $1.55 billion was awarded for the job.
With the approval, Kyari said work was presently ongoing at the Port Harcourt refinery and would also commence soon at the Kaduna and Warri refineries.
Kyari explained, “We recognise that today none of our refineries is operating for the very obvious reason that through the work of this committee, you will find out why they are not operating.
“We will hide nothing from you. We will also tell you where we are as we speak today. Needless to say that the refineries were essentially not properly managed overtime, not just today, but in the last 20 to 25 years.
“The turnaround maintenance processes were clearly mismanaged overtime. I have said this over and over. And when we took over, it was very obvious that what you are dealing with was not a turnaround maintenance. We were dealing with total rehabilitation.
“The panels were clearly in situations where ordinary maintenance will not solve the problem. We have degradation of monumental proportion that we met and, of course, the only way you can do this is to conduct a full turnaround maintenance.”
