Sylvester Idowu in Warri
An oil monitoring body, South-South Reawakening Group (SSRG) has advised the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Mele Kyari to carry out a thorough and excellent turn around maintenance (TAM) on the nation’s refineries to meet his desire to raise the daily production to three million barrels.
The group, in a statement by its Convener, Mr. Joseph Ambakederimo, expressed the believe that the nation’s four refineries could still work at installed capacity if the right and competent companies were engaged for its turnaround.
“In making the refineries work at installed capacity to meet our consumption levels there must be a thorough and excellent turnaround maintenance to be carried out by only competent companies that have the capacity and know – how to execute the job”, it said.
The group therefore advised the GMD to engage the original builders of these refineries, “whom are still very much around,” and not engage mushroom companies that fiddle with the refineries and bring them to further deterioration.
It stated further, “Engaging the original builders of these plants is key if the GMD must make a difference and put his name in the oil and gas Hall of fame. The GMD must deviate from the style of the past by resisting political interference in the management of these refineries and ensure Nigerians enjoy and benefit from a product that we have in abundance.
“The GMD must get it right this time and in getting it right the process of engaging the original builders must start in earnest for them to be able to complete the turnaround process on his set target of 2023, which is doable by our estimation”.
The SSRG said contracts for the turnaround maintenance could be done on a single source basis because the original builders were well known worldwide as experts in this field thereby short- circuiting the long tender process.
Thy added: “The GMD must be in a hurry to get this job done to further save the country from this huge financial haemorrhage.”
The group maintained that another equally important revenue generating component, which was always left out when talking about refining, was the petrochemical plant, noting that it was the production of feedstock such as carbon black, polypropylene, petroleum Jelly, paraffin wax and others was important for industrial raw materials for many industries especially the plastic industry and in the manufacture of many car parts for the automobile industries.
“We can meet 80 per cent of our industrial needs of theses raw materials mentioned that is produced by the petrochemical plants thereby saving scarce foreign exchange that would be deployed to other areas in dire need”, it added.
