George Oji
12 July 2008
Kaduna — Ten years since its last comprehensive maintenance in 1998, the Kaduna Refinery and Petroche-mical Company (KRPC) with installed capacity of 110,000 bpd has been slated for Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) in October.
Managing Director of the refinery, Mr. M.O. Agoro, who disclosed this while briefing members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Down Sector) Friday in Kaduna said already the Federal Executive Council has given its approval for the award of the contract and same has been done by the company.
TAM is a planned maintenance activity ideally scheduled to take place every two years.
Agoro explained that already, the materials required for the maintenance job had already been procured.
Said Agoro, "The good news is that the Federal Executive Council has recently approved the award of the KRPC Turn Around Maintenance labour contract and we plan to implement it in October this year."
The Kaduna refinery, which was constructed in 1980 and refines both local and foreign crude was shut down in February 2005 as a result of shortage of crude oil supply to the plant. This was necessitated by the activities of the Niger Delta militants who vandalised the pipeline that supplied crude to the plant from the Niger Delta region.
However, by March this year, the factory was brought back to life as it resumed operation, operating at between 60 to 70 per cent capacity.
The Managing Director explained to the lawmakers that one unique thing about the refinery is that it is operated 100 per cent by Nigerians and most maintenance activities done by Nigerians, thus the percentage of national content is almost 100 per cent.
He regretted, however, that the highest approving body to the refinery, which is MEXICOM cannot approve any amount in excess of N5 million, an amount he said is not enough to procure a pump. This development, according to Agoro, has caused unnecessary delays in equipment maintenance and hence the plant availability and reliability.
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