nigeria refineries

Nigeria's four refineries with combined capacity to refine 445,000 barrels per day of crude oil have been completely shut.
The implication is that Nigeria will now be importing all its petroleum products. The refineries have for years operated far below their capacity utilisation, due to attacks on their crude supply pipelines and the problem of epileptic power supply.

The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Austen Oniwon, who confirmed the development yesterday, blamed the closure of Kaduna and Warri Refineries on the resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta region, which resulted in attacks on crude supply pipelines.
He was, however, silent on the cause of the closure of the 210,000 barrels per day Port Harcourt Refinery, the largest in Nigeria.
Sources said the plant, which has not been in operation for some time now, was closed down because of the damage on its vital units caused by epileptic power supply.
Oniwon, who led the top management of the corporation to pay a courtesy visit on the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Azubuike Ihejirika, at the Nigerian Army headquarters Abuja, disclosed that recurring damage of oil pipelines by vandals had impacted negatively on the operation of the country's refineries as all the four refineries had been shut down temporarily.

He implored the Chief of Army Staff to particularly deploy his men to step up surveillance on the crude pipeline from Bonny to Port Harcourt Refinery and the Escravos pipeline to Warri and Kaduna Refineries. He, however, did not say how long it will take before the corporation reopens the plants.
"The rate of the crude pipeline vandalism from Bonny to Port Harcourt Refinery and the escravos to Warri and Kaduna Refineries is alarming and I wish to request the Army to concentrate on these pipelines as they are critical to our operations," he said.
The 110,000 bpd Kaduna Refining and Petochemical Company (KRPC) was only reopened in February this year after the repair of the damaged pipeline and the completion of its Turn Around Maintenance (TAM).
The NNPC had confirmed that the refinery was fully back on stream, although it declined to disclose the actual daily output.

The attack on the Escravos-Warri pipeline is a major setback on government's bid to increase refining capacity and reduce dependence on imports.
Both Warri and Kaduna Refineries run on crude oil imported by pipeline from Chevron's Escravos oil terminal.
The NNPC had last month outlined what it described as a grand plan to refurbish and upgrade existing units of the refinery through the execution of a comprehensive TAM exercise in the months ahead.
The GMD, who made the disclosure at a recent Town Hall Meeting with the staff in the Eastern zone of the corporation, said though it might cost more to undertake a complete overhaul of the refinery, "the NNPC is willing to go full throttle to ensure a successful TAM, which was last executed in year 2000". He said the original contractors of the refinery would be given priority in the award of the TAM project.

"What we want to do is to undertake a different type of TAM that will guarantee maximum benefit. So we are going back to the original contractors who built all the units to ensure an effective and total refurbishment of the plant. Unlike in the past when the scope of work was not clearly specified, we intend to conduct a full scale technical audit with well defined scope of work for the contract," said Oniwon.

The poor state of the nation's refineries over the years due to pipeline vandalism and lack of maintenance, not only cost the country revenue generation but resulted in products scarcity.
Last year, a former NNPC GMD confirmed that petroleum importation had increased from 50 to 100 per cent at a cost of N800 billion subsidy from about N700 billion.

As at the end of last year, capacity utilisation of the refineries was put at only 13 per cent. With the poor state of the Port Harcourt Refinery due to epileptic power supply and the closure of the Warri and Kaduna Refineries, the nation's refinery output currently is at a zero level.
But worried by the development, the GMD has sued for more collaboration with the Army in the area of engineering and applauded the Army for maintaining a high standard of work in some of the contracts being handled by the Army for the corporation.
The NNPC helmsman reiterated the commitment of the corporation to the existing mutual relationship between the NNPC and the Army and asserted that the relationship would help the duo to meet its primary obligations to the country.
He congratulated Ihejirika on his well deserved appointment adding that since his assumption of office, the Army had succeeded in curbing the wave of crime in the Niger Delta region.