In this age of cheap internet, free access to google and other search engines, with online news media. It is unfortunate that many are attempting to twist and turn VERY RECENT History in everyone's face. i will like to use this thread to remind us with verifiable links what obtained in the GEJ administration as regards our oil refineries. In a nutshell(for those who don't want to read long post), the past administration/government lacked progressive direction as regards the refineries. The below facts are things everyone knows even though some choose to forget.

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As at November 23, 2012, the news was "Refineries’ turnaround maintenance to start first quarter 2013"

Below are some excerpts from the news report, all are free to read the full report from the link given.

-The long-awaited turnaround maintenance for the country’s ailing refineries will start in the first quarter of next year, with the Port Harcourt plant slated to be attended to first.
-The spokesperson for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Fidel Pepple, confirmed the dateline for the commencement of the maintenance works.

He said in-house estimates for the repairs were currently being finalised.
-The Federal Government had said it planned to spend $1.6bn (N251.2bn) on the repair of the three refineries .

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, had said there were some adjustments in the timelines for executing the TAM.

She said although there were plans to build new refineries, existing ones would still be maintained.

The minister had also said there was a new plan to increase the local refining capacity of the nation’s three refineries to 90 per cent of their installed capacity by 2014.

She explained that the planned TAM and upgrade of the refineries could not hold as earlier scheduled because of the negative travel advisory given by the Japanese authorities to JGC, the original builders of the Port Harcourt Refinery, which stopped its officials from coming for the upgrade and maintenance of the refinery.

“[b]With that hurdle surmounted, we have put in place a new plan complete with new schedules and timelines to bring the refineries back to life [/b]and get them to run at higher capacity. The maintenance and upgrade work will start with the Port Harcourt Refinery, which has stayed the longest period without turnaround maintenance,” she had explained.
-Alison-Madueke also said the contract for the project would soon be signed and that the rehabilitation and upgrade work would move from the Port Harcourt Refinery to the Kaduna and Warri refineries in that order until the last one “comes on stream by the beginning of the last quarter of 2014.”

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The next month of that same year, December 15, 2012. The story developed k-leg. The headline was "[url=http://www.punchng.com/news/fg-drops-planned-refinery-projects-%E2%80%A2jonathan-must-tackle-fuel-subsidy-corruption-labour/]FG drops planned refinery projects •Jonathan must tackle fuel subsidy corruption–Labour[/url]"

Here are some excerpts from the report.

-Eleven months after promising to build three new refineries for the country, the Federal Government may have dumped the plan.
-This development came to the fore as organised labour expressed surprise at President Goodluck Jonathan’s N161bn supplementary budget on fuel subsidy for 2012.
-he President had in a letter to the National Assembly on Tuesday, said the N888bn budgeted for fuel subsidy this year would not be enough.

But as Jonathan is seeking an additional N161bn, the FG has yet to begin moves to build the three refineries it promised during the fuel subsidy protests last January.
-The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had in 2010 unfolded plans to build three new refineries.

The refineries are to be sited in Kogi, Lagos and Bayelsa states.
-The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, who spoke to douse the tension associated with the protests, had said, “I want Nigerians to know that when these new refineries are completed, we will be a net exporter of petroleum products and prices will begin to come down, just as we are witnessing in the telecommunications sector with the GSM regime.
-“The one in Lagos is with the capacity of 200,000 barrels per day, while the ones in Kogi and Bayelsa have the capacity to produce 100,000 barrels per day.”
-He said, “The three refineries are to be built by the government in partnership with the private sector. They do not include the six that are solely private sector driven.

The above quotes would have been funny if they were not utterly pathetic. It was all mouth, no action.

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Ten days later, Christmas day, it was still discordant tunes as regards refining crude oil in Nigeria.
December 25, 2012, News headlines read "NNPC plans to repair three refineries with N152bn"
Some excerpts from the report are in the quote below.

-The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation will spend N152bn on the repair of three of the nation’s refineries in 2013
-Details of the budget show that the total maintenance cost for the Port Harcourt Refinery by its original builders, basic engineering design for the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit and RFCC plant project is estimated at N76.779bn.
-The NNPC also plans to move 42.3 milion barrels of crude oil to the domestic refineries for processing in 2013.

As a result, a total of 18.64 billion litres of products are expected to be derived from local refining during the period.
-The National Assembly had queried the NNPC for spending more than it earned in 2012. It consequently requested details from where it got the extra money to fund its activities.
-The Minister of Petroluem Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, had in October said that the Federal Government planned to spend N250bn on the Turn-Around Maintenance of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries.

She said the government would spend $146m out of which $32m (75 per cent) had already been paid for the materials needed.

Several TAMs had been performed on the refineries in the past without visible results.

Don't hiss just yet, the drama continues one year later.

November 28, 2013, the story had not improved in any way. The headline was "FG completes negotiations for Port Harcourt refinery"
Some excerpts from the reports are in the quote below.

-The Federal Government on Thursday said it had completed negotiations for the sale of Port Harcourt refinery as it works towards privatising the nation’s four crude oil refining companies in the first quarter of 2014.
-Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, declared that her ministry “was completely unaware” of shady deals perpetrated by NNPC as was recently alleged by a Swiss-based non-governmental advocacy group, Berne Declaration.
-She said, “The sale of the refineries comes in the first quarter of 2014. At this point in time the negotiation rounds for Port Harcourt refinery are finally completed.
-As you know, we started the turn around maintenance with the original contractors that built the refineries.

It'leaves much to be desired when less than a year before, billions of naira were said to be approved and paid for maintenance, and we were expected to have billions of litres of products in 2013. But by November 2013, they were finally completed on selling the refinery without any so called 18.64 billion litres of products derived from local refining.

Enter last year, January 3, 2014. The news had it that "Jonathan hasn’t approved sale of refineries, says Abati" Don't get dizzy by the ding-dong, fasten your seat belts and read some excerpts from the report in the quote below.

-The Presidency on Thursday said the Federal Government had no plan to sell any of the nation’s refineries contrary to the news making the rounds about the imminent sale of the facilities.
-the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers had threatened to embark on an industrial action this month if the Federal Government refused to drop the idea of selling the refineries.
-“The Federal Government will not sell the refineries. There is no authorisation for anybody to do so; there is no presidential endorsement. [/b]Even the minister does not have the powers to sell government’s property,” Abati declared.
-The Head, Public Communication, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, had said through a statement in Abuja on December 20, 2013 that Jonathan had approved the constitution of a steering committee for the sale of the nation’s four refineries.

[b]Anichebe had said the President also approved the commencement of the privatisation of the refineries.
-“This is in keeping with the transformation agenda, which seeks to catalyse and provide an enabling environment for the private sector to be the driver of economic growth in the country.

So, did anything concrete or progressive happen all through last year as regards our four refineries? [size=13pt]NO[/size]. You can be sure, it would have being in the TRANSFORMATION campaigns. By the ending of the year, last year, our refineries were still hopeless despite all the billions of naira spent on TAM and all the failed promises.
November 24, 2014, News was "Oil slump: Nigeria’s crude refining to drop further" Our REFINING dropped further, the GEJ government did not sell them or produce anything tangible for the benefit of the country.
Some excerpts from the news report are in the quote below.

-The country’s four refineries are currently operating far below optimal capacity owing to their prolonged state of disrepair. Falling oil prices and pipeline vandalism are further threatening their output
-Nigeria is currently under fresh pressure to reduce the quantity of crude oil being refined in its four refineries.

This, according to sources in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, is due to the rising cost of refining the oil locally.
-Rather than spending the nation’s scarce resources on refining oil, government is said to prefer importing the refined products.
-Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest crude oil producer, is arguably the biggest importer of refined petroleum products on the continent, creating a lucrative market for refineries particularly in Europe and the United States.

This unfortunate status is unlikely to change any time soon because all the four refineries had been operating well below installed capacity as they are in different states of disrepair, according to experts.
-The existing four local refineries (with 445,000 bpd capacity) only contributed about four per cent to 20 per cent in the past five years to the national petrol consumption, he also said.
-But the NNPC has continued to attribute its failure to put the refineries in efficient working conditions to security threats in the regions where the refineries are located.

The corporation also claimed that Original Equipment Manufacturers for the refineries had refused to show up after they might have been invited for the TAM on grounds of insecurity.
-OPEC, in its World Oil Outlook 2014 report, said the continent would boast only about 0.6 million bpd of the new crude distillation capacity by the end of 2019 .
It further stated that Nigeria had failed to fast-track the implementation of new refinery projects, while it continued to face setback as regards the rehabilitation of the existing refineries.

Quite a grim report, the unpatriotic acts and deliberate sabotage in the past government was unchecked. Did elections, campaigns and a new year improve anything during the GEJ administration? NO

This year 2015. March 3, 2015. This was ELECTIONS month, if the GEJ administration had any hope as regards our 4 refineries, any sort of joker, or light at the end of the tunnel, this was the time they would have presented it. GEJ would have gone to commission it, but even the very tunnel was taken away as soon as there was ever hope of light at the end of the tunnel. The news reads "Lack of support by labour stalls refineries’ sale"
To sell or to repair, to sell or to repair, to sell or to repair, March 3, mini mini mani mo. Well, some of the excerpts from the report are in the quote below.

-The Federal Government may have slowed down the process of selling the nation’s refineries following its failure to secure the support of labour unions.
-Although the BPE had listed the sale of the four refineries in its work list for 2014 after securing the approval of the National Council on Privatisation, the agency said the deal would only happen when the government secured a buy-in from the organised labour.
-the General Secretary, Nigeria Labour Congress, Dr. Peter Ozon-Eson, said the organised labour remained opposed to the sale of the refineries and indicated the failure of the government to obtain its support.
Ozon-Eson said, “We remain opposed to the sale of the refineries. Our position is that the refineries should be made to work.
-A source at BPE indicated that work on the proposed sale of the refineries had slowed down but added that the agency was working on the sale internally.
-The immediate past Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, had explained that the Federal Government deferred the proposed sale of the refineries in order to ensure the stability of the political environment.

Maku said although the Federal Government believed in the tremendous benefits of privatising the refineries to the Nigerian economy, a decision on the sale had to be taken when critical stakeholders come to agree on the need for the action.

The past FG wanted so badly to sell the refineries but for pressure from the labour people, and to avoid POLITICAL instability. Elections were coming and they didn't want any Occupy NNPC or whatever similar thing that might have disturbed them politically. It is therefore unfair and even criminal for anyone to commend the past administration for the current and sudden progress, development and production being experienced at the Nation's four refineries.
Finally, to the more recent and popular news about 2016 and the refineries. Any serious person as at that date knows this was yet another unserious promise. March 5, 2015, news headlines said "Refineries will produce 400,000bpd in 2016 – NNPC"

Excerpts from the reports below.

-The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said on Thursday that the country would be producing about 400,000 of refined petroleum products every day when it completes the current rehabilitation of the three refineries in the country by the first quarter of next year.
-Okon, in company of the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Joseph Dawah, told the senators that the corporation could not afford the bills for their turn around maintenance from the original builders.
-He said, “The refineries would work again at full capacity, we already have plans to bring them back to perform at full capacity. We have discarded the initial plan of carrying out a comprehensive turn around maintenance initiated in 2011.
-He said Saipem which was to carry out the turn around maintenance of the Port Harcourt refinery gave the agency a bill of $475m, but later reduced to $297m after further negotiation.

He said the management considered the prices to be on the high side and that given its financial situation, decided to look inward by inviting local contractors that are familiar with the facilities and worked with them.

Here we are, its the beginning of August and the reports are that our refineries have started to work. Thanks to former President Jonathan? Really? Reality clearly shows he didn't even have an idea or clue.

cc Lalasticlala, midolian, PassingShot, barcanista, Whynotthetruth, Dearpreye, Firefire, Mogidi, Mizmycoli, IsraeliAirforce, Obiagelli, Egift, Omenka, Donphilopus, Pendy79, NgeneUkwenu, Jarlons, Mynd44, Caseless, Aresa

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Why are you shouting lalastical like a parrot ... Of all thread this your long for nothing epistle

Woooow...

This is probably one of the best write up I have read on NL, very factual and amusing. Kudos to the OP

If I was GEJ, I will hire professional assassins to take out Deziani, NNPC GMD and members of the board of directors because it is very obvious that he was deceived, sabotaged, mis-led, fooled, pissed on. The truth is nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing was wrong with the refineries, all it need was crude oil.

Cluelessness is indeed worst than HIV. Smh

@Op,kindly pm ur phone number Lemi send u recharge card for this wonderful piece of research and info.
I just marvel and smh d way some people just talk,insinuate and peddle lies on issues of the true state of our nations refinaries and how GEJ's administration was insincere abt d whole TAM issue.
infact,it may surprise u to knw that this few piece of info and links you have up there is small compared to the the original gist u can gt from first hand insiders.I will say no more.
meanwhile OP,I dey wait for ur cell phone num.

This is very insightful. For those needing a brief version, here it is:

1. Jonathan and his Team kept siphoning money through the Budget in the name of Refineries (construction, repair, TAM, etc) since 2012.
2. Made empty promises and claims as it was later known that not of such happened (yet the loot was never returned).
3. To impress us during the elections, Jonathan promised us 2016, if we reelect him and approve more billions for him and his gang.

Today under Buhari the Refineries are becoming operational again with phony back-dated tales from NNPC.

My take is: The Refineries had no problems. It was just a looting channel for the PDP. Today for the fear of Buhari and the PDP out of the way, everything is falling in line perfectly.

Kudos to Buhari. Haters can continue.

OP, this is an awesome, articulated thread. It would be a shame on the mods if this didn't make it to the front page.

Cc: lalasticlala Ishilove, obinoscopy, do the needful, guys. This thread deserves FP.

Op,this is what I call digging Deep.

Jonathan's administration is the biggest scam ever in this country

I cannot take credit for the revival of our refiineries - President Buhari




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD5Tr-c9fQ

dustmalik:
OP, this is an awesome, articulated thread. It would be a shame on the mods if this didn't make it to the front page.

Cc: lalasticlala Ishilove, obinoscopy, do the needful, guys. This thread deserves FP.

OK I don hear.

no time to read dis epistle

Op you can deceive your mama in the village not us ok because you are talking trash

Maxymilliano:
I cannot take credit for the revival of our refiineries - President Buhari




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD5Tr-c9fQ

Paul's epistle to the Romans busted with one comment from PMB. Nothing to add
Thanks Maxymillano.

wecan:
Op you can deceive your mama in the village not us ok because you are talking trash

Unless you are providing any other evidence to fault the well articulated and fully referenced details by the OP, you should keep calm.

The Jonathan and his crew were looting money from the budget in plain sight in the name of Turn Around Maintenance that never happened.

You can tell me that your papa didn't pay your mother's bride prize and now buhari has paid for it too. That is what we can believe because i can see that you are a bastarddd for taking ur time to post this rubbish just to give buhari credit of what he didn't know how it started

egift:


Unless you are providing any other evidence to fault the well articulated and fully referenced details by the OP, you should keep calm.

The Jonathan and his crew were looting money from the budget in plain sight in the name of Turn Around Maintenance that never happened.

It's only fair to TANoids to accredit the revival of the refineries...forgeting that their GEJ was the 'maga' to NNPC and Dieziani...
When technocrats such as Prof Soludo said the last admin was a 'govt of chop-chop', we threw all manner of aspersions on him, but alas he was right...
GEJs aides and some ministers were beneficiaries of his cluelessness!
I am quite sure that the refineries would have been in operation till after 2019 had GEJ won...
GEJ kept on spending money on TURN AROUND MAINTENANCE year in, year out, till he was TURNED OUT of office.

Maxymilliano:
I cannot take credit for the revival of our refiineries - President Buhari




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD5Tr-c9fQ

True but can we say the last administration fixed them?


Now that will be the question. Show evidence that the GEJ government fixed the refineries, show us the contracts awarded to fix the refineries, how much was paid and when the contracts were made.

Remember they said the refineries wont work until first quarter 2016. This is not even last quarter 2015.

Personally, I doubt anything major was wrong with the refineries in the first place with these news. It was just more profitable to some people to import fuel than for the refineries to be functioning

Where is my cheque-book? Oya, Musa come and sign 100k for this OP to encourage him bring up some more nice factual articles like this. Well done bro.

wecan:
You can tell me that your papa didn't pay your mother's bride prize and now buhari has paid for it too. That is what we can believe because i can see that you are a bastarddd for taking ur time to post this rubbish just to give buhari credit of what he didn't know how it started

Did you have to insult someone bastard because of a simple logical well written article? Wow! What's wrong with ur temperament dude? oh! Come on, change that despikable attitude bro. Damn! Am disappointed.

Mynd44:

True but can we say the last administration fixed them?


Now that will be the question. Show evidence that the GEJ government fixed the refineries, show us the contracts awarded to fix the refineries, how much was paid and when the contracts were made.

Remember they said the refineries wont work until first quarter 2016. This is not even last quarter 2015.

Personally, I doubt anything major was wrong with the refineries in the first place with these news. It was just more profitable to some people to import fuel than for the refineries to be functioning

The resuscitation of the erstwhile moribound refineries was in progress before Buhari was sworn in as President.

The quoted piece was the situation of the refineries as at the 2nd of May, 2013

www.vanguardngr.com/2013/05/nigerias-refineries-now-producing-10m-litresday-of-fuel-nnpc/

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Thursday, announced an improvement in Nigeria’s refining capacity, declaring that domestic refining of Premium Motor Spirits, PMS, at the country’s three refineries has increased to 10.23 million litres per day.

According to Group Executive Director, Refining and Petrochemicals, NNPC, Engineer Anthony Ogbuigwe, the three refineries are also currently producing 5.53 million litres of dual purpose kerosene and 8.016 million litres of automotive gas oil, diesel daily.

He disclosed that the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company is currently running at 65 percent installed capacity, while the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company is producing at 63 per cent and the Port Harcourt Refining and Petrochemical Company at 66 per cent of installed capacity.

He said, “I can tell you with every sense of responsibility that contrary to the news making the round, all our refineries are doing very well.
The major components and various units of Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units, (FCCU), Crude Distillation Unit (VDU) and Vacuum Distillation Unit (DDU) of all the refineries are working well.
“Infact, these refineries have been running consistently for over three months now.”

He explained that the stability that has
characterized the supply of petroleum products to motorists in the country is attributable to the good performance of the refineries.

Ogbuigwe maintained that the scheduled turn around maintenance for the refineries are on course and already the Port Harcourt refinery has taken delivery of some of the components for its rehabilitation.

“I can tell you that five shipments for the turn around maintenance of the Port Harcourt Refining and Petrochemical Company have arrived,” he added.

He decried the incessant pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft stressing that the menace is a big threat to the nation’s oil and gas industry.

He called on all the stakeholders in the petroleum sector and Nigerians to team up with the NNPC in finding a lasting solution to the menace to enable the refineries run without hitches.

As you rightly posited, nothing much is wrong with the refineries, what seem to have improved since Buhari came on board was the reduction in pipelines vandalism, and to a large extent, crude oil theft ...

OP, your article is well written. I did a similar one in the past but this one has more depth. It is obvious that NNPC/Diezanni/GEJ scammed us with all their tales by moonlight. Here is mine https://www.nairaland.com/2392387/buhari-not-jonathan-responsible-refineries

As you rightly observed, if those refineries were even genuinely scheduled to work in December of this year, GEJ/PDP would have used it as a campaign point. After all they used what is not even in existence to campaign. It is the same with electricity.

The good thing is most Nigerians already have the belief that the coming of PMB has made a lot of things to start falling into their right place. It's not uncommon to now hear Nigerians say such things as "if PMB is slow and we now enjoy electricity better than before, I prefer his go-slow", "if PMB is slow and refineries are now working, let him continue to be slow".

Sensible and well-meaning Nigerians know that it was the right thing to send GEJ packing especially when we consider all new revelations we've heard since PMB became president.

Hear prof. Itsay Sagay on the revelation of crude stealing:

“Before this fresh revelation, one was very disturbed when Okonjo Iweala, raised the alarm that about 400, 000 barrels were being stolen every day. To hear that the quantity is as much as one million barrel per day is something else,” he said.

“It shows the country went into a total rot under the last regime of President Goodluck Jonathan. They would have looted the country to bankruptcy within a year if they were not removed from office. We should be grateful that a disciplined and upright man has taken over to clean the mess and save the country.

The statement by PMB in that video only strengthens the OP's points.

No one claims PMB made any direct input to the revival of the refineries, and that was the crux of his statement.

The point is that the disruption of the economic sabotage and looting, in the way of Jonathan and co's preference for fuel importation instead of local refining and starving the refineries to make it tenable, is the primary reason for their accelerated revival.

The integrity of PMB is becoming a well all Nigerians can drink from.

Maxymilliano:
I cannot take credit for the revival of our refiineries - President Buhari

The same way he can't take credits for EFCC rising from oblivion?

It's not unrealistic to conclude that his body language and utterances about fighting corruption head on may have forced the hands of those people handling the refineries to fall in line.

It's also very plausible to conclude the TAM was another avenue to siphone the nation's wealth under the guise of phoney contracts. After all, anything goes in Nigeria

It's not always about what was said but you should always connect informations together in order to have a true/clear picture of things

Nice 1, brother.

Some can argue that GEJ should take the credit for fixing our refineries. Its allowed. They can f00l themselves as much as they want. This is democracy. Its only annoying that these pple will blame Buhari for every ill that befalls Nigeria, regardless of where it stems from..buh when good things happen, they ld luv to refer us to the past.

Adeshina was interviewed yesterday concerning this same issue and here is what he said "There is something called the right atmosphere. I believe that the right atmosphere is responsible for the improvements that you are talking about all over the place". ..Now this is what I feel about the whole issue. When the head is good, the body will definitely function well. Buhari as we all know, is a no-nonsense man. No one dare plays "hanky-panky" games with him. He wld expose and deal with you without hesitation.. And that is why things are working perfectly well under him.

What is happening now shows that during GEJ's regime, we had what it takes to fix the refineries... but instead of doing the needful, the cluelesswicked one saw it as another ample opportunity to scam us(Nigerians)...I am sure if the man had won for a 2nd term, the "dribbling" would have continued. And more billions of dollars would have gone down the drain(to him and his co-horts)..

Buhari's victory is a clear proof of God's love for us.

PDP and "theifry" are like bread and butter.
I have always said what Nigeria need is a no-nonesense leader and everything will start falling in place.
Imagine even Tompolo writing and thanking PMB while some people are still crying for another man's loss.

The question I will like to ask saTANoids is, will the refinaries work if GEJ had won the election? We most likely would have been told another bull sh!t story of how the exchange rate has affected the value of the contract from X billion dollars to X+Y+Z billion dollars and the new completion date will be 2019

Expecting the wailer in chief Mr Barcanista to counter this thread, with lies..

If jonathan had won the election. Nigeria would have been in deep shit.

Alison madueke will keep looting
okonji iweala will also keep doing same
everyone in govt will be looting till 2019.

Perhaps, the looting would have gotten out of hand to the extent that it'll take another president forever to make a single thing right.

If we could exercise patience for jonathan with all his glaring corrupt govt.

Why dont we do same for PMB and not this early condemnation of his govt. Atleast, some things have started working. That ought to be a tip of the iceberg that more things would work.


Be ready to run mad if u quote me and say rubbish cos u and i saw jonathan corrupt govt.

U're not in the moon then, except u'll tell me, u're blind.


Check my signature for ur customised wristband.