www.vanguardngr.com/2012/04/kaduna-refinery-to-refine-50000-litres-of-foreign-crude/

KADUNA – THE Kaduna Refining and
Petrochemical Company, KRPC, is to refine
about 50,000 litres of foreign crude daily to
augment the three million litres of petrol
(Premium Light Spirit or PMS) it had been
producing in the last few weeks.
Managing Director of the KRPC, Mr Bankole
Ayodele, who made this known when the
Group Executive Director, GED, (Refining
and Petrochemical), Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Philip
Chukwu visited the company yesterday,
said: “The KPRC has two components. One
is for reefing foreign crude, and the other
for domestic crude. The plant for domestic
crude is already running and we produce
about three million litres of PMS daily.
“Before now, we were producing about 1.5
million litres per day of PMS. Now some
parts of the plant that were shut over 10
years ago are back on stream, and on the
overall we produce at about 73 percent
capacity.
“All the facilities for the foreign crude
component have been restreamed. The
only problem is that the platform on which
we receive foreign crude at the Escravos
platform at Warri is bad now. But we have
contacted Chevron to help us handle it.
They have finished their investigation and
would soon hand over the report and their
advice to us.
“We chose Chevron because they are close
to the platform and understand it better.
The process is not going to be long, and the
amount involved is not much. Due to the
importance of the platform, I believe that
very soon, it would be fixed. From there we
can start pumping imported crude from our
Warri pump station to Kaduna.
“Our Bonny Sweet Light Crude oil does not
have some of the by-products that the
heavy impoted crude has. From the
imported crude, we would now start having
wax products, base- oil lubes, asphalt and
so on.”
The GED later inspected the rehabilitation
work going on the 60 millilon litre storage
tank for imported crude being handled by
an indigenuou firm, Supar Steel Nigeria
Limited.
They had lifted and suspended the gigantic
tank by hydraulics and were laying new
base plates for the first time since the
commissioning of the refinery in 1980.
According to Ayodele, most of the
rehabilitation work was done by local staff.
Replying, Mr Chukwu commended the
management of the KRPC over its effort to
re-position the company saying, “the NNPC
has been following the developments at the
KPRC and is impressed by the progress so
far made.
“Your good work has been noticed in Abuja,
and we are very proud of you. We know
that you work under some challenging
conditions, but you have been able to show
that with the proper people and things in
place, Nigeians can manage their
investemnsts. I say to you well done.”
Fielding questions from newsmen later
Chukwu said that the NNPC had developed
three measures to return the refineries to
full production using minimal resources.
He said: “We call it Refineries Rehabilitation
Programme. Under it we are going to fix
the plants and the supply chains. Then we
will talk of storage facilities.”