NNPC working to restore refineries on stream

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SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is working to ensure that the Warri and Kaduna Refinreies are brought back on stream as the nation braces for the biggest fuel challenge in preparation for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Business Champion learnt that efforts were ongoing to restore the crude feedstock pipeline to the refineries. While the Kaduna is scheduled for turn around maintenance in the period, the management of the Warri Refinery is said to have started facility integrity checks in the interim.

The two refineries were shut down after vandals sabotaged the feedstock and off-take pipelines in the Niger Delta, a situation that delivered the domestic market into the hands of commercial importers under a subsidy arrangement with government.

Before the refineries were shut down, hopes were rising that import volumes and associated subsidy bills on government would drastically reduce, and possibly phase out if all the three refineries with total nameplate of 445, 000 barrels of crude processing capacity were brought on full stream.

Before the sabotage, the Warri Refinery was working at full blast capacity and the Managing Director, Mr Andrew Yakubu, an engineer, said NNPC had activated plans to explore capacity expansion at the plant.

For the first time also, the Warri plant activated its petrochemical unit, optimized output of white products with the facility of the fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) and stretched its storage capacity and the bridging efficiency of the sister Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC).

The PPMC holds the monopoly of offtake from the nation’s refineries, being also saddled with the task of meeting internal demand through the hybrid strategy of massive importation and refinery supplies.

The relief from the refineries has never been stable due to pipeline sabotage and the wits of the management of the plants are always at the ends in the search for ways of coming around community problems.

Mr. Yakubu said the management of the refinery was doing everything possible to ensure the sustained integrity of the pipelines, including provision of stakeholding for the communities and huge local community content.

Contrary to expectations, the spokesman of NNPC, Dr Levi Ajuonuma, is reported to have dismissed the refineries as old and outdated.

According to an article in a national daily, the technology employed at Nigeria’s refineries is way behind the times.

Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, Group General Manager, was quoted as saying that the refineries are at least 30 years behind modern technology.

"The control room is three decades behind in technology and Nigeria should be proud of the NNPC team for keeping the refinery working with obsolete technology," Ajuomuna said.

He commended the workers for their ingenuity in keeping things running despite the fact that the refineries have had no turnaround maintenance in 10 years.

"So you can appreciate the ingenuity of our highly skilled staff to carry out this job, making things happen out of nothing," Ajuonuma said.

The Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Co. (KRPC) are set to shut down for maintenance. KRPC’s turnaround maintenance is almost 10 years overdue and because of that fact KRPC has contracted the services of an equipment manufacturer from Hungary. Currently about 90 percent of the equipment has arrived in country and is awaiting clearance from the port.

In an effort to ensure that the maintenance shut-in does not cause a scarcity of fuel supplies, KRPC has refined fuel in stock that will satisfy its immediate need for the short-term. "We have made reservations to avoid scarcity."