The senate committee on petroleum resources (down-stream) will in January 2005, conduct an investigation into the state of the nation’s four refineries to determine why the refineries are working epileptically despite the huge resources expended on their Turn Around Maintenance (TAM).
This came at the height of fuel scarcity particularly in the northern part of the country.
Chairman of the Senate committee, Senator Emmanuel Agboti while speaking at a pre-public hearing meeting with officials of Total Nigeria Plc, said the public hearing on the state of the refineries had become imperative because of the volatile nature of the downstream sector of the oil industry and the inefficiency of the refineries.
Senator Agboti said Nigerians are interested in knowing why the refineries are still not functioning at full capacity, after learning that government has ploughed billions of dollars into rehabilitating and maintaining the refineries.
“These is no gain saying that matters pertaining to supply of petroleum products in Nigeria and the issue of appropriate pricing mechanism of these products presently occupy central stage of public discourse. These are matters which almost all Nigerians look at with considerable passion.
“The reason for this should not be far-fetched. Petroleum products affect every facet of the peoples life as in transportation, cooking, operation of the industries, commerce and agriculture. An efficient downstream sector with a functional refinery system is therefore a desideratum,” he said.
Nigerians, Senator Agboti added, are entitled to efficient services especially in such critical sector as the petroleum industry, particu-larly where taxpayer’s funds are being spent in great volume.
In justifying the need for the public hearing, the committee chairman said, “we in the committee are therefore committed to a public hearing that will enable the people know what actually happe-ned in this vital sector of our body politics.”
Responding, the managing director of Total Plc, Mr. Christian de’Closieres said his company supervised the TAM of the Kaduna refinery and the rehabilitation of specific operating units within the refinery from April, 1998 – August, 2003, at a cost of $19 million.
He said before the intervention of Total, in 1998, two other TAM’s ought to have been carried out on the refinery, consequent upon which the refinery was in bad shape when his company was awarded the contract.
The total contract sum, Mr. de’Closieres explained was $214.98 million out of which his company received $19 million while the balance was paid to sub-contractors for materials purchased, labour and equipment.
On completion of the TAM and rehabilitation work, he said Total handed over the refinery to NNPC on August 31, 2003.
Meanwhile, the sum of $520 has been spent by the federal government on the repairs and general mainte-nance of the four existing petroleum refineries in the country since 1999, the vice chairman of the Senate committee on petroleum resources, Senator Abiola Ajimobi has disclosed.
Senator Ajimobi who was speaking in Ibadan at the Hot Seat Forum of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Oyo State council remarked that the huge investment on the refineries’ maintenance had failed to effect improvement of the local fuel supply.
As a result of this development, he said, “the nation had to import 13 million litres daily to meet the local demands of Nigerians.”
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