Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) is to resume production in two weeks, the Group Executive Director (GED)/CEO Upstream, Bello Rabiu Babura has said.

Speaking during a tour of the refinery on Saturday, he said that the crude pipeline is almost ready and will soon start pushing crude to the refinery.

“It will take at least 10 days to bring the crude into Kaduna and another three or four days to make everything ready,” Babura said. “We are trying to make sure that, in the next two weeks everything will be ready to start up this refinery and to be producing fuel. Once that is done, it means that the entire northern part of this country will be serviced with fuel,” he added.

Mr Babura assured that the refinery is in good state, adding that since there is no crude yet, what the refinery is doing right now is check and balance and housekeeping to ensure that when they start work nothing will stop the refinery from production again.

“The key issue there is that there are three critical areas the CDU, the FCC and the heaters and they are working very hard on that. We believe, by the end of next week, we will be ready to start receiving the crude oil and if crude comes and we actually get everything ready, we believe by the middle of this month everything will be running in the refinery,” he said.

On the issue of vandals, the GED said the military is virtually in control of every pipeline.

“As far as we are concerned, we have no problem in the creeks, we have taken care of that area. For the first time, in about 10 years we actually have our line from Bonny terminal to Warri and Port Harcourt delivery 100% of crude,” he said.

•Photo shows Kaduna Refinery.