• Targets 60 per cent capacity utilisation
The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) said yesterday that it would invite external
licensors to undertake process audits on its four refineries in Port
Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna.
It said that when the process audit is
concluded, its importation of petroleum products into the country would
reduce and the capacity utilisation of the refineries increased to 60
per cent by the end of 2017.
A statement by the Group General
Manager, Public Affairs of the corporation, Ndu Ughamadu, in Abuja
stated that its Group Managing Director, Dr Maikanti Baru, disclosed
this during a courtesy call on him by the management of Media Trust
Limited, publishers of Daily Trust Newspapers.
Baru explained that the NNPC was keen on
ending petroleum products importation in a few years and that a
concrete plan was on the ground to achieve this.
“We are putting together various
programmes to ensure that we achieve at least 60 per cent local refining
by the end of this year. It is the procedure or methodology that we are
changing a little bit, we are focusing on the process licensors to come
and audit our processes and they have already started auditing most of
our process units in the various refineries,” said Baru.
He further explained: “We hope if we do
all these systematically, we should be able to get about 60 per cent
level of capacity utilisation by the end of this year or at worst by the
first quarter of 2018 and get to 80 per cent by the end of 2018 so that
we could locally be able to supply half of our PMS requirements.
“Also, with other efforts in terms of other refineries coming in place, we should be able to quit importation in a few years.”
He urged the media to help in
enlightening the public on the dangers of pipeline vandalism, which he
said had become a drain on the nation’s economy.
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