• Seeks commercialisation of Port Harcourt, Warri, Kaduna plants
The wasteful management of Nigeria’s refineries, especially the N11.35 trillion Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) cost and another N1.6 trillion loss incurred on the moribund assets, which is now being rehabilitated for $2.2 billion is generating fresh concerns on the floor of the Senate.
The Senate, yesterday, in Abuja, insisted that it would get to the root of the wasteful spending along with another $592.9 million, €4.877 million and £3.456 million wasted on the assets in the last 13 years.
Already, the lawmakers have constituted an ad-hoc committee to probe all the contracts awarded for the rehabilitation of all state-owned refineries, even as Nigerians await the promise of President Bola Tinubu that the assets, especially Port Harcourt refinery, would come up stream in December this year amid the mess caused by total dependence on importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
This comes as the upper chamber moves to interrogate the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) on the best approach to commercialise the state-owned refineries.
Nigeria has three refineries located in Kaduna, Port Harcourt in Rivers State and Warri in Delta State. These assets’ installed capacity of 445,000bpd plummeted over the years until the facility got obsolete and currently processes zero crude, while recording massive losses.
Buried in corruption with a series of probes at the National Assembly indicting public officials for misappropriating funds meant for TAM, documents on the financial details of previous maintenance exercises, especially since the military regime, have been scanty.
The Guardian had reported that despite being shut down, NNPC may have left over N136 billion as operational deficits across its three refineries. On average, NNPC was spending, plus or minus, N68 billion yearly in paying salaries and other expenses at the moribund refineries. In about two years, the losses had amounted to an average of N136 billion.
The Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin (APC, Kano), who presided over the plenary, named Senator Isah Jibrin Echocho as chairman of the committee. Other members are chairmen of the committees on Petroleum Resources (Downstream, Upstream and Gas), Finance, Appropriation, and Public Accounts. They are to submit the report within four weeks.
The committees are also to interrogate the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NUPRC, NNPCL, and BPE on the best approach to commercialising and/or ensuring profitability of the refineries.
