Punch Newspapers Sections Published 12:25 am A petroleum engineer and oil and gas analyst, Mr Bala Zakka, shares with TUNDE AJAJA his view on the planned repair of the Port Harcourt refinery by the Federal Government, the challenge asssociated with gas flaring and other issues in the petroleum downstream sector What is your view on the plan by the Federal Government to spend $1.5bn on the Port Harcourt refinery, which many people describe as moribund? I would not call those refineries moribund; refineries that are moribund are very old and cannot be serviced due to wear and tear. If there are refineries of more than 100 years and they are still functioning at about 95 per cent capacity, then our refineries in Nigeria cannot qualify to be called moribund. They have simply been poorly managed and due to corruption and indiscipline, they have been made not to perform at their average or optimum capacities. On the amount that is supposed to be spent, all I can say is that if we say we cannot spend that money to fix the refinery for whatever reason and we decide that building new refinery is the way forward, since it was mismanagement and lack of maintenance that led to the malfunctioning of the refineries, the same mismanagement would destroy them.