The chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Bayo Ojulari, has disclosed why it has been challenging to rehabilitate refineries in the country
According to him, the NNPC was losing about ₦500 million monthly on Nigerian refineries when he resumed office.
Speaking on Thursday in Abuja, when he received a delegation from the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), led by its president, Festus Osifo, Ojulari stated that it has been challenging to rehabilitate the refineries due to years of neglect.
He said, “When you fix one thing, the other thing is still there. So, it’s been very difficult to get it.
“When I resumed, one of the first priorities I focused on was the refineries, to have a quick review, to see whether we could quickly fix it.
“What I found is that we were losing between ₦300 million to ₦500 million on a monthly basis in the overall refinery.
“Let’s take Port Harcourt. We were pumping about 950,000 barrels as cargo to go to the refinery. You know that kind of price.”
Ojulari said when the NNPC looked at the inputs and outputs, the mass balance showed that less than 40 percent of what was going in was coming out.
“Then you also found that we were producing mid-grade product because only half of the refinery was working.
“The way the refinery is designed, the two parts are one. You hear old refinery, new refinery. That’s the wrong information.
“The way the refinery was designed, when the old refinery came forward was that the old refinery was meant to feed into the new for the end product to be of the right standard to the market,” he said.
The NNPC GCEO said attempts to revamp the old refinery were not optimal.
“And that’s why we could not properly produce premium motor spirit (PMS).
“But also the mid-grade product we were producing was at a significant loss to all of us. We’re all Nigerians. It’s not about me or anything. That was the problem,” Ojulari said.
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