ABUJA — THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday admitted its culpability in the breakdown of the nation’s refineries just as it revealed it had engaged foreign experts in the management and training of local hands for the refineries.
At a pre-public hearing on the state of the nation’s refineries, Engr. Abubakar Yar‘Adua, Group Executive Director (Petrochemicals and Refineries) exonerated the contractors and consultants that handled the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries.
Shell, which was recruited as consultants for the TAM of the Port Harcourt refinery, also blamed the problems of the nation’s refineries on the poor logistic management at the refineries among other management problems.
The hearing by the Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum, according to Senator Emmanuel Azu Agboti, the Committee chairman, was to prepare the committee for the public hearing on the state of the nation’s refineries. Present at the hearing yesterday were Senators Abiola Ajimobi, vice-chairman; John Danboyi; Hosea Ehinlanwo; Oserheimen Osunbor; Iya Abubakar and Sanusi Daggash.
Opening the hearing, Senator Agboti, lamenting the rundown of the refineries, said the people through their representatives were entitled to explanations on the state of the refineries especially after the investment of billions of dollars into the refineries.
Following presentations by Chrome and Shell, the Port Harcourt refinery TAM contractor and consultant respectively, Engr. Yar‘Adua, had concurred with their explanations of having done their jobs satisfactorily.
For the Port Harcourt refinery, he said the later shut down soon after the TAM was carried because of an explosion in the FCC caused by a staff of the refinery for which he said adequate punishment was meted. “The views of Chrome and of course that of Shell are correct. We have no ambiguities, of course as you heard, there were hitches on the financing and also on the material acquisition and that caused some problems,” he said.
Attesting to the good performance of the Port Harcourt refinery after the TAM handled by Chrome, Alhaji Yar‘Adua said: “Before that explosion in Port Harcourt, in fact they got a shield for the best operating refinery. They were hitting 90 per cent, 92 per cent capacity, but unfortunately there was a mistake in the operation of the FCC. We call it a mistake, we investigated it, it is what we could call lack of knowledge of the operators which we are trying to address. Once the FCC is not operating in any refinery, then it becomes a non performer.”
He equally admitted the exclusion of the power plant from the scope of work in the TAM of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, saying: “The same mistake done in KRPC, the power plant was not addressed. I can admit it is a mistake on the operation of that refinery and the mistake has continued and up till today as I am talking, we are just trying to address it. People seem to neglect power plant and waste disposal in refineries.”
Besides, the GED also traced the problems of the refineries to an aging workforce caused by the moratorium in recruitment into the organisation during the nineties.
