Another life for Nigeria’s refineries

In the aftermath of the change of government, revelations have so poisoned the oil and gas industry, no strand of it, would have been considered redeemable. So much mud was in particular thrown at the NNPC. It was kicked in the teeth, tackled in the groin and generally disrespected. Its most vulnerable arm, comprised our […]

In the aftermath of the change of government, revelations have so poisoned the oil and gas industry, no strand of it, would have been considered redeemable. So much mud was in particular thrown at the NNPC. It was kicked in the teeth, tackled in the groin and generally disrespected. Its most vulnerable arm, comprised our four refineries, whose direct contact with the public, serves as the source of the most virulent civic irritation.
The refineries have had an uneven fortune, producing today and going offline tomorrow; slated for privatization by several regimes and yet the surprising beneficiaries of liquidity support for turnaround maintenance. In all this, management and workers in our refineries have been given the stick. No one has had a kind word for these long suffering workers. But suddenly, the tide seems to be turning. Our favourite villains, may have been martyrs all along!  There seems to be ,a silver lining in the cloud.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed that Nigeria has saved over 287million dollars from the turnaround maintenance of the Port harcourt refinery Eleme. Dr Kachikwu made this observation, shortly after an inspection tour of the refinery. Foreign companies had proposed to carry out the turnaround maintenance at a cost of 297million  dollars, but using NNPC manpower and local servicing firms, the maintenance was completed using under 10million dollars.
The feat is most of all, a victory for integrity and diligence, quantities not often thought to be common in our public services. Everywhere you turn, you encounter sleaze and poor governance. And the convention is to expect that the worst excesses will be found in the oil industry. The example of the turnaround maintenance of the Port Harcourt Refinery is therefore a useful breath of fresh air. In addition, the maintenance has exposed the protocols of extravagance commonly adopted by several of the foreign countries who operate within our shores. These experts, are often not experts. They are predators groping for the entrails of our fatherland. They seek, not an expansion of the public good, but an aggrandizement of their private portfolios.
No none should now be bothered by the fact that the Port Harcourt suffered a maintenance deficit that spanned a whole twenty five years. The reasons were more political than anything else. And if the point must be made, the blame cannot be heaped on the local technocrats. It is they who have now, much to the surprise of many Nigerians, carried out the restoration of the Port Harcourt refinery.
Dr. Kachukwu, the NNPC’s Group Managing Director has been very effusive in his praise of workers in the Port Harcourt refinery and also of the other entities in Warri and Kaduna. The public has been asked to expect that within the next ninety days, our refineries will be operating at optimal capacity.
One of the running themes in the oil and gas industry, is the concern with developing local capacity. For a long time, the industry was dominated by expatriate presence to the exclusion of native hands. This was an important consideration under the past administration, and it appears to have been partly responsible for the latest maintenance triumphs in our refineries. This triumph is the triumph of in-country competence, once the subject of widespread disrespect in official circles. It is also useful, that the Group Managing Director, has found time so early in his tenure to visit the refineries. This hands-on approach is a moral tonic for the workers and serves as an opportunity for the GMD to observe the entity at close range. The turnaround success has come against the tide of public expectation. The maintenance difficulties of our refineries have been rather well-known.
Indeed in the instance of the Port Harcourt refinery, the maintenance narrative included an element of blackmail, as the original builders frequently cited current security challenges as a basis for no action or for over pricing. This has forced government to look inwards in order to patronize in-country competence. This is what has produced the latest turn around success in the Port Harcourt Refinery. This is a victory for local technology and prudent management.
The suggestion that Nigerians must be involved at the critical levels of the economy is coming relatively late to an industry that has enjoyed pre-eminence for fir over forty years. But it is better late than not at all. However, it is a matter of regret that somewhere in the public consciousness and even in official circles, the colonial mentality still persists. That is why many Nigerians for example still think the Super Eagles need a white coach and that is why entrepreneurs think an industrial plant will work better with a white man at the head. All this is superstition. As the Port Harcourt refinery has shown, in-country competence contains limitless potential for social and industrial good.
Olowu writes from Abuja.