Fidelia Okafor.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Tuesday said it would embark on a comprehensive rehabilitation of the nation’s refineries to achieve optimal capacity utilisation in 2017.

NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Refineries, Mr Anibor Kragha, said this in Abuja in a statement by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division.

The three refineries in Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt have had skeletal operations this year.

The statement reported Kragha as saying that the Corporation was determined to move away from the approach of quick fixes and undertake a comprehensive revamp of the plants.

”The plan for next year is to get the comprehensive rehabilitation programme done.

”The situation is like having three cars in your garage that have not been maintained for 15 to 20 years while you expect optimal performance from them.

”Changing one fuel pump here, one compressor there is not helpful. What we are doing now is to step back and take a holistic approach and do a full rehabilitation of all the refineries,’’ Kragha said.

He noted that once the exercise was achieved, a chart for routine Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) Programme would be drawn.

On the earlier plan to have other refineries co-located with the existing refineries, Kragha explained that though the plan was still on course, none of the projected co-location refineries would come on stream in 2017 based on existing timeline for assemblage of the plants.

He added that the Port Harcourt Refinery was a ”few steps away” from commencing the production of Aviation Turbine Fuel known as aviation fuel.

”We are very close; we have done tests with some of the key marketers. We have achieved all the parameters, we just want to be 110 per cent certain,’’ he said

The statement stated that earlier, the Managing Director of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals Company (KPRC), Mallam Idi Maiha, assured that KPRC was ”assiduously working towards a target of 75 per cent capacity utilisation in 2017”.

Mariah projected that the KPRC would supply one cargo of crude oil per month.

Also, the Managing Director of Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company, Mr Solomon Ladenegan, noted that ”despite the hostile operating environment, fraught with incessant cases of pipeline pulverization and outright product theft, the refinery was looking forward to better days ahead