As the 90-day deadline for renovation approaches, investigations have showed that none of Nigeria’s four refineries with collective capacity of 445,000 bpd have begun operations as fuel scarcity persists in the country.

The refineries in Warri, Kaduna, and the Port Harcourt plant had resumed production in July 2015, after they were rehabilitated. However two were shut down in August, while the third, the Port Harcourt refinery stopped operation in September.

According to the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ohi Alegbe (photo), the 90-day deadline given by the Minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, was meant to bring them back on line. Meanwhile, he rejected the possibility that any of the refineries will be sold at the end of the deadline.

“Two of them are ready to go; what they just need now is crude and that is why we try to get the pipelines working. Kaduna, for instance, is ready to go. Port Harcourt is ready to go and the other ones are still being worked on.There has not been any time anybody said anything about selling”, he noted adding that the problem associated with the Port Harcourt refinery had been resolved.

Dr Ibe Kachikwu, during a facility tour of the refinery in Kaduna, had declared that the corporation would provide all the essential enablers to make the Kaduna Refining Petrochemical Company operate commercially and in the most favorable way, Leadership news reports.