Why I sold Nigeria's refineries — Obasanjo

FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has said he sold the nation's refineries for N750 million because they were not at per with global standards.

He described the nation’s three refineries as scraps that cannot help the oil needs of the country.

Obasanjo, in an interview with Premium Times, an online news agency, noted that the capacity of the refineries was way too low for what obtained globally.

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He recalled that as president, “what I met were refineries that were not working, refineries given to an amateur for repairs and maintenance, what they call turn around maintenance, to the company of Emeka Offor – Chrome Group. Where has Emeka Offor maintained refineries before? Where has he? That’s what we met. So the refineries were not working.”

Chrome Oil is presently managing the critical component of the refinery and Offor is the major contractor handling key rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery II.

The former president said “the refineries were not working. I called Shell. I said ‘come and help us, just run the refinery.’ Shell was frank with me."

He said Shell told him that our "refineries are small. Port Harcourt is 60,000 barrels a day. Refineries now go 300,000 barrels a day. Your refineries have not been maintained well. We don’t want to go into the corruption that is entailed in all these.”

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 Obasanjo said he told Shell then, “ok, come and help me run it,” adding that the company, however, refused.

“Now, when I then saw people who agreed to take 51 per cent equity in two of the refineries; they did not promise to pay, they paid 750 million, I was dancing and I said ‘look, this is God sent.’ My successor came (and) they cancelled it and paid them the money back. Those refineries today – you won’t get them because they’ve become scraps,” he said.

When Obasanjo was told that it was recently said the refineries were working again, the former president said “Who made them work?” and laughed.

Last week, the management of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) disclosed that the plant would begin refining of crude oil by the end of the month.

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Managing Director of KRPC, Alhaji Saidu Aliyu Mohammed, made the revelation while delivering an address at the opening ceremony of the Annual Energy Correspondents Workshop in Kano, organised by KRPC officials.

Mohammed said: “Replacement of the weak segments of the pipeline is ongoing. The repair work is expected to be completed on August 27, and thereafter, crude oil supply to KRPC would resume.”

Also the former managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Joseph Dawah, in June, had disclosed that Port Harcourt refinery would commence operations in July at 80 per cent capacity.

The Warri refinery was reported to have began production in the wake of the inauguration of the current administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

It is, however, said to be running at 50 per cent capacity at present.

The NNPC operates three refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd). They are the 210,000bpd Port Harcourt refinery, the 125,000bpd Warri refinery and petrochemical plant, and the 110,00bpd Kaduna refinery and petrochemical plant.

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