The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachukwu, currently attending OPEC meeting in Vienna Austria had through a podcast monitored in Abuja, said that the federal government said it will shut down the three refineries and begin turnaround maintenance on them by December 2018.
Though he gave some insights on the planned turn around maintenance (TAM) for three of the nation’s refineries, he was mute on funding sources as there was no provision for such in the 2018 budget and the lawmakers had some weeks ago, declined approval for $1.2bn repairs on grounds of endless repairs without results.
In the 12-minute podcast distributed to journalists in Abuja this week which addressed the refinery component of the “7 Big Wins”, Kachikwu said before the maintenance begins by December, government was optimistic that by October it would have signed all the requisite agreement with the financiers and contractors.
The minister explained that the model adopted for the refineries’ repair as approved by President Muhammadu Buhari involves third party financiers working with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to raise the refineries from 10 to 90 per cent performance capacity.
Kachikwu said, “That process is almost largely done and we are hoping that by the end of October we should be in the position to have signed all the requisite agreement and be able to charter people to move in to begin to work.
