The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engineer Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua, says that the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) will before the end of the year undergo a total Turn Around Maintenance (TAM).

The GMD made the remark in Kaduna while on a visit to the KRPC as well as to witness the resumption of operations of the plant.

The refinery, which resumed operation two weeks ago, was shut-down in February 2006 following the vandalism of the Chanomi creek pipeline which supply crude to Warri and Kaduna refineries.

Yar’Adua was represented by the Group Executive Director (Refining and Petrochemicals), Mr Onochie Anyaoku.

“We will do the TAM for KRPC in a short while. We have done some cleaning job to enable it re-stream at a reasonable plant situation.

“We will do TAM hopefully in the next six months, in the dry season. It cannot be done in the rainy season, but in the dry spell.

“The cost of TAM will be significantly reduced based on the job we have already done,” the GMD said.

He said that the TAM contract had yet to be awarded, adding, “We have always used our staff optimally in TAM, being a manpower intensive, short period activity done in about 45 days in every two years.”

“We are outsourcing the gap to ensure quality delivery,” he said.

Yar’Adua said that NNPC had already begun the process of bringing foreign crude to Nigeria.

“We have ordered for the commodity so that the petrochemical unit of KRPC can start production soon,” Yar’Adua said.

The GMD explained that the unit would refine the heavy crude oil from Venezuela into lubricants used in industries.

He said that the refinery was building stock systematically and in phases to enable other sections restart operation in due course.

Yar’Adua said that the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) was being fixed so that it could receive and build stock for the restart of lube operations in the third or last quarter of the year.

“It is a plus for NNPC and Nigeria to achieve what we have done today,” he said, adding that for this year, NNPC would guarantee about 60 per cent installed capacity production even as it targeted 70 per cent at the moment, “until we improve further ultimately .”