According to reports by Leadership/NAN, the Group
Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Emmanuel
Kachikwu, has disclosed in an official visit to WRPC in Ekpan, near Warri in
Delta State, that the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) would
resume production in November, 2015.
Dr. Kachikwu,
who assumed office in August 2015, has informed that the refinery stopped
production temporarily to enable authorities carry out routine maintenance on
some of its facilities. The GMD said that there had been no serious maintenance
on the plants for about 15 years, adding that it had adversely affected the
efficiency of the refinery.
The GMD
said “WRPC was not shut down because of a lack of crude oil supply nor was
crude oil not supplied because the refinery was down; the two are different
things altogether”. “The Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) unit had a problem
and that is why it was shut down. However, they are working assiduously on
it”. “By the end of first week of November, the WRPC will be back,’’ he
said. “The reality is that for over 10 and 15 years, no serious maintenance has
been done on the plants,’’ he added.
Kachikwu
also raised a serious concern noting that most of the pipelines experienced
frequent vandalism, and they were already weak owing to the fact that they were
over 40 years old.
Also he
stressed the fact that an aggressive security approach would be adopted in
tackling security challenges in the corporation’s operations.
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