NNPC yet to react to ministerial nominee, Jeddy Agba’s outburst on refining grafts
Though Mr. Jeddy Agba, an experienced oil and gas expert was recently at the Senate Chambers for his ministerial screening and confirmation possibly as the next Minister of Minister of State for Petroleum, three key issues he raised against the management tactics of the NNPC raises issue of national attention.
Besides, some of his answers during his screening suggested that running down the refineries is one of the targets of previous managers.
Key revelations he made included the fact that “Our refineries refine just on stream of crude and if that is not available, then no refining or they import the right crude before any refining happens”.
Secondly, “Our refineries are too old and Turn around maintenance (TAM) we did have been like getting a bike repairer to fix a Mercedes Benz.”
According to him, “NNPC imports foreign welders to weld pipelines here and each from Houston or France earns $10,000 monthly and NNPC can’t train or advise Nigeria to introduce welding courses in Nigerian schools.”
Now, the questions begging for answers from the new GMD, Mr. Mele Kyari and his newly named Executive Directors include but not limited to why has all previous TAM failed? Why do NNPC call in wrong expertise for repairs? Does Nigeria have experts in x-ray welding for critical pipelines? If yes, why then import expatriates from US with humongous pay?
