TheCable

A house of representatives ad hoc committee has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to withhold its bid to spend $1.8 billion on the nation’s refineries.

In 2017, the NNPC proposed a fresh bid to spend the money on the turn-around maintenance (TAM) of the three functional refineries in the country.

The house had subsequently set up the adhoc committee to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the state of the refineries and their maintenance.

Addressing journalists on Thursday, Garba Muhammad, chairman of the committee, said the lawmakers have asked the NNPC to withhold the planned spending for the time being.

“The committee has communicated to Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, and Maikanti Baru, group managing director of NNPC, requesting them to stay action pending the outcome of the committee’s investigation,” he said.

“We also want to seek full cooperation of the stakeholders and the general public in the course of the full exercise.”

TheCable had reported that the consolidated capacity utilisation of the three refineries dropped to 6.1% at the end of September 2017.

The drop was a sustained decline from the average capacity of 13.7% recorded in 2016.

Port Harcourt refinery has been the only refinery that has shown a reasonable state of stability in operations.