ALBERT

Description: This paper measured the significant factors leading to performance challenges across state-owned refineries in Nigeria based on experts’ views. The study was carried out with a view of making policy recommendations to help address these issues and thereby improve performance. A quantitative approach was adopted to sample the viewpoints of the professionals who work across the NNPC refineries. Using a Likert-type questionnaire, the professionals’ expert opinions were ranked across four main categories covering political, economic, social, and technical (PEST) factors. A Cronbach alpha test was performed to certify the consistency and reliability of the sub-category factors included on the Likert scale. In addition, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was carried out to check for any statistically significant differences in the respondents’ opinions as a result of their different years of work experience. The study revealed that while all four PEST factors are crucial to the performance of the state-owned refineries in Nigeria, political, economic, and technical factors were viewed as more significant than the social factors. A comparative analysis of the sub-category factors using the relative significance index (RSI) and the respondents’ mean scores of importance (RMSI) revealed that government interference, funding issues, political indecision, theft and pipeline attacks, cost of spare parts, maintenance issues, operating capital, feedstock supply, staff training and competence issues are some of the significant factors that affect the performance of the refineries. The identified performance challenges from this study were used to inform policy recommendations to help address the problems of the refineries.