Lokpobiri, Kyari Inspect Kaduna Refinery, Assure Operations In 2024

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, and the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, have jointly carried out an inspection tour of the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) in Kaduna to assess the work progress on the ongoing quick-fix project being undertaken on the facility by Daewoo Engineering Construction Nigeria Limited.

This is even as they revealed that the Refinery will resume operations by December 2024.

Earlier, before the inspection of the quick-fix project, the Minister and the NNPCL GCEO attended the Refineries’ Rehabilitation Steering Committee meeting with key stakeholders.

The ongoing project is not unconnected to President Bola Tinubu’s directive to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and NNPCL to fix the nation’s moribund refineries in order to start refining crude oil locally.

The 110,000bpd-capacity Kaduna Refinery is one of Nigeria’s four dysfunctional refineries that have produced no petrol for many years, leaving the country to rely heavily on imported petroleum products.

In February 2023, the NNPCL signed an agreement with a Korean company, Daewoo Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited, for the rehabilitation of the refinery. It would be recalled that the last turnaround maintenance on the refinery was carried out about 15 years ago.

Speaking with journalists after the steering committee meeting and inspection of the refinery, the Minister and the NNPCL GCEO assured that everything was being done to ensure the commencement of oil refining on or before December 2024.

The GCEO reiterated that, “Our plants are in progress and we are putting everything in order to deliver crude stock at the end of that 2024 deadline. The contractor has mobilised to site and every requirements including process of delivering on the expected date are on course. We have started receiving all the equipment and we are very confident that we will receive all the appropriate financing and that Kaduna Refinery will start working again and deliver value to Nigeria.

“The quick-fix is for 60 per cent production capacity, so that we can start making money from this plant and then we continue to full length capacity, which will also tally with the completion of the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) of the pipeline to have a reliable pipeline delivery infrastructure.”