7 August 2007
Lagos — The NNPC says it is working with some International Oil Companies (IOC) to establish two new refineries with capacities for 200,000 barrels daily each.
Dr Levi Ajuonuma, NNPC Group General Manager (Group Public Affairs Division), said they would be located in Okrika and Brass.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja that the corporation would inaugurate the new refineries by 2011 or 2012 as contained in the NNPC brief to the Ministers of Energy last week.
Ajuonuma said the additional refineries would bring the total domestic refining capacity to 845,000 barrels per day.
He said the current demand of about 30 million litres of petrol daily required 600,000 barrels refining capacity daily."Therefore, even if Warri and Kaduna refineries were to operate at 100 per cent capacity, there will still be need to import the shortfall to satisfy consumers," Ajuonuma said.
He said NNPC had four refineries in Kaduna, Warri and two in Port Harcourt, all of which were planned to be productive.
The refineries have a combined production capacity of 445,000 barrels of crude per day," he said.
The corporation has 22 storage depots, 5,120km of pipeline and 24 pump stations."
The NNPC today imports fuel not because the refineries arenot working but because of the Feb. 18, 2006 violent damage done by vandals to the pipeline which transports crudeoil from Escravos to Warri and Kaduna refineries."The 150,000 barrels per day Port Harcourt refinery is currently running at between 65 per cent and 70 per cent capacity which translates to about 3.5 million litres of petrol daily," he said.
The Head of Public Affairs said the Warri and Kaduna refineries were producing at between 75 per cent and 80 per cent capacity before they were forced to shut down due to lack of crude.
He said: "They are still in good working condition. Substantial rehabilitation work had been carried out on therefineries before efforts were frozen in 2006 due to privatisation issues."
"For instance, at the Port Harcourt refinery, repairs werecarried out on the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU)while the compressor of the catalytic system was completely overhauled."
He said the Turbine Generation Control System hadbeen upgraded, Boilers 1 and 4 Super Heaters repaired and the Cooling Tower restored."At the Kaduna refinery, the Crude Heater and Demineralisation Water Unit were fully rehabilitated and functional," he said.
"Revamping of the fuels plant instrumentation is about 96 per cent complete while raw water rehabilitation project is 96 per cent complete."
He said that at the Warri Refinery, Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) on the fuel plant and rehabilitation of the petrochemicals unit were completed."The plant is in perfect working condition as of today, but only lacks crude to refine," he explained."Capacity utilisation of there fineries improved from less than 40 per cent in 1999 to 80 per cent average until Feb.18, 2006 when Warri and Kaduna refineries were shut down,"Ajuonuma said. He said the closure resulted from vandalism of the Chanomi creek crude oil pipeline and further investment restriction on the refineries due to impending privatisation.
He said: "Until very recently, restive youths in the location of the damaged pipeline denied engineers access to the site to effect repairs.
"The repair work on the pipeline has now commenced and is expected to be completed by September.
"When that happens, it is envisaged that the Warri and Kaduna refineries would be producing 17 million litres of petrol daily.
"From the facts enumerated above, it could be seen therefore that the menace of pipeline vandalism was substantially responsible for the seeming failure of there fineries to operate".
"For example, the NNPC suffered971 cases of pipeline vandalismin 2004; 2,258 in 2005 and 2,912cases in 2006 resulting in of several billions of naira loses," he said.
Ajuonuma said that given the determination of the present administration to address the Niger Delta issue head-on, the NNPC needed the support of all and sundry, especially the media to help fight the menace of pipeline vandalism. "This act has remained the greatest threat to effective and efficient supply and distribution of petroleum products," he said. "NNPC fully supports 2020 downstream sector aspiration which entails full liberalisation that can enable effective participation of newplayers in new ventures," Ajuonuma said.
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