19 February 2013, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Port Harcourt refinery is to be shut in May for a major turn around maintenance.
Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, the minister of petroleum resources said consultants have finally mobilised to site, to begin the TAM, while rehabilitation work on Kaduna and Warri refineries are intended to follow in quarter four of this year and first quarter of next year, respectively.
“Contractors have already been mobilized to the site for preliminary work. The main work will begin in May.”
She said that there had been a marked improvement in the refining capacity and utilisation in the country’s refineries as against the epileptic condition that prevailed a year ago, averaging 60-68 percent.
“The impact of all this has been an increase in the contribution of the refineries to the supply of petroleum products to the country; we are now supplying about 21 million litres daily from about 12 million litres,” she said.
“I think that we are expecting that we will gradually decrease importation as the turn around maintenance come in to play in the rehabilitation of the refineries again and also the efforts of privatisation begin to kick in as well,” she added.
