Dr Ibe Kachikwu assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt and the Okrika Jetty refineries would not be sold.
GMD of NNPC, Dr Ibe Kachikwu
The new GMD of NNPC, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has reassured Nigerians that
the Port Harcourt and the Okrika Jetty refineries would not be sold. He
said that the corporation would commence the unbundling of the Pipelines
and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) into three different companies.
This was contained in a press statement signed by Ohi Alegbe, the
corporation's Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division and
made available to newsmen in Lagos. He said that joint venture partners
with established track records of success in refining would be invited
to support the running of the refineries in order to ensure efficiency.
According to him, efforts are in top gear to fix all the crude and petroleum products pipelines across the country.
"The Nigerian Airforce will be engaged to provide aerial survey
of the pipelines, the Nigerian Army Engineering corps to fix and police
the pipelines while Nigerian Navy would provide marine surveillance for
the network of pipelines.
According to the statement, Kachikwu made this disclosure during an
official tour of the Okrika Jetty and the Port Harcourt Refining
Company Limited on Wednesday, September 2.
The statement said that the PPMC would be split into pipelines
company that would focus primarily on the maintenance of the over five
thousand kilometers pipelines of the corporation
It stated there would be a storage company that would maintain the
over 23 depots and a products marketing company that would market and
sell petroleum products.
Kachikwu said that the move would ensure that the right set of
skills are rightly positioned and the number of leakages in terms of
pipelines break and products loss are reduced to the barest minimum.
The GMD said that the ongoing phased rehabilitation of all the
state owned refineries would be given an accelerated vigour with the aim
of reducing petroleum products importation into the country.
He added that at full capacity, all the refineries could supply
only 20 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as
petrol on a daily basis.
The GMD commended the NNPC’s Engineers for the successful execution
of the ongoing phased rehabilitation of the refineries. He urged them
to prepare a replacement programmes for obsolete spare parts of all the
Corporation’s installations in order to avoid intermittent shut down of
facilities.
The statement also stated that Dr Barred Enjugu, the Managing
Director of the PHRC, said the ongoing phased rehabilitation of the
company cost a little less than 10 million dollars.
According to Enjugu, the job was holistically carried out by indigenous engineers without any foreign support.
It further stated that the Managing Director of PPMC, Esther
Namdi-Ogbue assured the GMD that the company would "think outside the
box'' to provide solutions to all the challenges confronting the
company.