MELEE Kyari, the incoming group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Monday vowed to make all the four refineries in the country working before 2023.

He made this pledge at the valedictory session organised for the outgoing group managing director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, held at NNPC Towers in Abuja.

“We will deliver all our four refineries within the life of President Buhari’s administration. We shall seek strategic partnerships to ensure Nigeria becomes a net exporter of petroleum products,” he said.

He also stated his resolve not to compromise on his stand for transparency and accountability.

“To my family members, from today, if you accept any gift from anyone, then it is not from me. So those who want to give my family members gifts, let them know that my family members can never influence me,” he said.

In his remarks, he thanked President Buhari for the chance to serve with a promise to deliver on the mandate of the corporation.

“I’ll like to thank President Buhari for giving me the opportunity to serve. It is a challenge and I promise to do this job with integrity. I will never do anything against the interest of this Corporation,” he stated.

The current NNPC boss joins a long list of Nigerians who had given a timeline to make the nation’s refineries fully operational but only time will tell.

In May 2017, Ibe Kachikwu, a former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources during an interview on BBC World Service programme, HardTalk, anchored by Stephen Sackur vowed to resign if Nigeria’s refineries were not working by 2019.

Unfortunately, he failed to meet the target and also did not honour his word by resigning from his position as Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

GMD @MKKyari: "We will deliver all our four refineries within the life of President @MBuhari's administration. We shall seek strategic partnerships to ensure Nigeria becomes a net exporter of petroleum products."#KyariTakesOveratNNPC #TransitioninNNPC pic.twitter.com/mKxSB3q51a

— NNPC Limited (@nnpclimited) July 8, 2019

About 445,000 barrels per day of refining capacity can be produced across the four facilities which operate well below capacity, forcing the NNPC to import greater quantity of the country’s petroleum products.

NNPC manages the nation’s major refineries, two located in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which combine to form the Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC, with a combined installed capacity of 210,000 barrels per stream day, bpsd, Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited, KRPC, capable of 110,000 bpsd and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited,WRPC, which boasts of 125,000 bpsd.

Nigeria currently produces an average of 1.8 million barrels of oil daily, despite, huge resources spent on Turn Around Maintenance, for the refineries none had worked up to 50 per cent of their capacity at any time during 2019, according to official figures from the state oil firm, NNPC.