Oil industry sources over the weekend made startling disclosures of how top industry officials ruined Nigeria’s four refineries by diverting huge funds earmarked for their routine comprehensive turnaround maintenance (TAM). The four refineries located in Port Harcourt (two), Warri and Kaduna have a combined installed capacity to refine 445,000 barrels of crude per day, but have over the years performed abysmally owing to the obsolete state of the facilities. THISDAY gathered that in 2014, the combined average refining capacity utilisation dropped to 14.4 per cent from 22 per cent in 2013. In 2015, the combined refining capacity utilisation declined further to 4.9 per cent against 14.4 per cent in the previous year. Three of the refineries could only produce at averaged combined capacity utilisation of between 12.73 per cent and 23.09 per cent. Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu disclosed in February that collectively, all the four […]