The Senate has summoned the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to appear before it so as to examine the conditions of the nation’s four refineries.
The Senate decided to summon the NNPC as a result of a motion, asking the Senate to act in respect of incessant fuel tanker tragedies on the country’s highways.
According to Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who moved the motion, there had been repeated fuel tankers crashes in the past weeks.
“Within the space of one week, four fuel tanker accidents occurred in two major cities in Nigeria, claiming lives and destroying properties.
“The first incident occurred at Upper Iweka, Onitsha claiming over 70 and another one at Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos,” the lawmaker said.
According to Ashafa, if the refineries were functional, all the tragedies would have been avoided.
“If our refineries were functional, all the tankers in Nigeria would not have businesses coming to Lagos to lift fuel as refineries in port-Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna would have taken care of that,” he said.
Responding, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said the Senate will examine the situation with the refineries especially those under construction.
It will be recalled that the NNPC had said on Saturday that Nigeria’s four refineries were set to roll back to life in July.
Speaking to Premium Times, Ohi Alegbe, the spokesperson for the NNPC, said the ongoing phased maintenance of the refineries was nearing completion and that the facilities would soon commence production.
“I think by July, the four refineries should begin to work,” Alegbe said.
According to him, the two refineries in Port Harcourt are scheduled to begin to receive crude next week while those in Warri and Kaduna would follow shortly after.
Mr. Alegbe said the turnaround maintenance of the refineries, which he said began in November 2014, was being undertaken by NNPC’s in-house engineers.
“We had to resort to in-house engineers after the original builders of the refineries, who were called in to do the job, kept coming up with outrageous bills,” he said.
He said parts of the problems with the Port Harcourt refineries had to do with lack of electricity to power the facility.
“We have now installed a mini-power plant to solve that problem,” the NNPC spokesperson said.
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