The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has reiterated its readiness to start crude oil refining at its Port Harcourt refinery in early August.
Mele Kyari, the NNPCL Group CEO, stated this on Monday when addressing an extraordinary session of the National Assembly’s joint committee on finance.
Kyari explained that the Port Harcourt refinery will begin production in early August of this year, while the Kaduna refinery will begin in December 2024.
Kyari, who had previously announced two weeks from March 2024 as the start date for production at the Port Harcourt refinery, insisted that ‘he is not lying’ as he repeated the revised August date.
He believes that with the Dangote refinery, Nigeria can achieve two million barrels per day and become a net exporter of petroleum products by December.
The PH refinery complex has two refineries in Alesa-Eleme, near Port Harcourt in Rivers State. Port Harcourt II (New Refinery) is a complex conversion refinery with a nameplate distillation capacity of 7,500,000 MTA (150,000 bpd). It began operations in 1988 and was originally planned to serve as an export refinery. Given the regular interruptions in supplies from Nigeria’s other three refineries, it has since been committed to domestic market servicing. Port Harcourt II has extensive clean fuel capabilities, including lead-free gasoline.
On Saturday, senior officials at the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPCL disclosed that the facility is currently undergoing various licencing processes, following the supply of crude to the plant after it was mechanically completed in December 2023.
Similarly, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, also insisted that the plant was at its final rehabilitation stage.
“The mechanical work at the Port Harcourt refinery has been completed. Also, crude oil has been sent to the plant. What is being awaited now has to do with licensing and the like. Now, these licenses are given based on some set of time-frames.
“Some officials involved in issuing these licenses are still observing the plant. Some of them came in last month and they are still there checking everything. They will also have to test-run the plant and all this will be at their pace. Most of them are foreigners and you can’t rush them.
“They have their integrity to protect, for if anything contrary happens at the refinery, the officials might be held accountable and their insurance firms would have to pay for any damage. So it is not entirely on our part when it comes to the takeoff of the refinery,” a petroleum ministry official, who spoke in confidence due to lack of authorisation to talk about the matter, stated.
In March this year, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC, Mele Kyari, said the Port Harcourt refinery had received 450,000 barrels of crude oil and would begin operations in April. This, however, did not happen.
Kyari had disclosed this at a press briefing after he appeared before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the various Turn Around Maintenance projects of the country’s refineries.
“We did a mechanical completion of the refinery, which was what we said in December. We now have crude oil already stocked in the refinery. We are doing the regulatory compliance tests that must happen in every refinery before you start it, and I assure you that this Port Harcourt refinery will start in the next two weeks.
“Completing the mechanical work means that you are done with the rehabilitation work, now you have to test to see how it works. Of course, we have also completed the mechanical work on the Warri refinery. It is also undergoing regulatory compliance; processes that we are doing with our regulator, and this will soon be completed and it will be ready.
“Kaduna refinery will be ready by December. We have not reached that stage in Kaduna, but we promise Kaduna will be delivered by December,” the NNPC helmsman had stated.
